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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24582772">the love you took from me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerobreaking/pseuds/aerobreaking'>aerobreaking</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>hold on, I still need you [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, i'm gonna make you suffer and you're gonna like it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:28:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>24,162</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24582772</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerobreaking/pseuds/aerobreaking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Soul bonds are beautiful things.<br/>He’s read books about them, countless of poetry has been written, he’s heard songs and seen movies and everywhere he looks, soul bonds are just something everyone will eventually have.<br/>But not Yuri. And not people like Yuri.</p>
<p>—There's a lot of things people turn a blind eye to when they talk about soulmates, Yuri wishes he could be that oblivious.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov/Yuri Plisetsky, Katsuki Yuuri/Yuri Plisetsky, Victor Nikiforov/Yuri Plisetsky</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>hold on, I still need you [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728439</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>174</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Part I — Cruelty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b> <em>It’s easier to reach the sun,</em> </b> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b> <em>Than to reach your heart.</em> </b> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>—Rayando el Sol</em></span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1"> <b>Toska (n.) Russian</b> </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1"> <em>No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At it’s deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases, it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level, it grades to ennui, boredom. —Vladimir Nabokov</em> </span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b>PRESENT DAY</b> </span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Despite the years, Yuuri still dreams about that day. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He dreams about Yuri’s hurt—so <em>hurt, </em>so <em>heartbroken—</em>expression and about the way his voice had cracked and about how his green eyes had looked at him like he was the most despicable person he had ever met. And, well, maybe he had been. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Sometimes, when he stops and thinks about it, he feels the void in his heart and he thinks, <em>this is </em>exactly <em>what I deserve. </em></span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">The hollowness is more than a little difficult to live with but he manages. He deserved it. They <em>both </em>deserved it. Viktor likes to pretend he’s doing good, but Yuuri has known him long enough to be able to tell that the smiles he gives are all empty and he hasn’t smiled sincerely to anyone, not even him, since the day Yuri stormed out of their house. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">It’s a side effect of their condition. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">All of Yuri’s anger and hate is valid, even now. In the beginning, Yuuri had tried to defend himself, he had tried to reason it out, “It’s not my fault,” He would tell himself and Viktor repeatedly, “It’s not my fault.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Yeah,” Viktor had responded, his shoulders slumped and his face defeated, “It’s <em>both </em>our fault. I tried—” He had continued, his voice trembling, “—I tried to talk to you about it and you would always—<em>always </em>try to <em>pretend—“</em></span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“How can you say that?” He had almost shouted, angry that Viktor wasn’t on his side. “I never—we never—It was the decision we <em>both </em>took.“</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“EXACTLY!” The older man had screamed, finally, his voice desperate and his hands shaking Yuuri’s shoulders, “WE <em>BOTH </em>DECIDED, SO IT <em>IS </em>OUR FAULT!”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“It’s not—“ Yuuri had said, wanting to delay the inevitable, but even as he was speaking, the guilt had already been settling and even four years later it hadn’t left. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Late at night, when he’s looking at the Youtube videos of Yuri and his friends having fun, looking as though he doesn’t have a care in the world, he wonders how Yuri is able to do it. He doesn’t look the least bit bothered but—well—he supposes, Yuri had lived this way <em>all </em>his life. Long before Yuri understood what was happening, they made the decision for him because they believed—or at least <em>thought </em>they believed—they were doing the right thing. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1"><em>“HA!” </em>Yuri had shouted when they had used this excuse, his teeth bared, “<em>Must be nice being up on that high horse!” </em></span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">His heart gives a lurch, and he has to stop for a moment and take a seat. His head pounds and he has to take deep breaths to keep himself from spiraling into another episode. It takes a while, but he manages to control it, the headache doesn’t fade but he thinks he can still work for the rest of the day. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">It had taken Yuri leaving for him to understand that he could not live without him. And that’s where all the unfairness is. He thought he could live his life at the cost of Yuri’s happiness but his marriage has fallen apart and the <em>longing </em>doesn’t ever settle. He had been a fool to think he could get out of this unscathed. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Over the past four years, he had sent many letters, emails, messages, and he had called and called but Yuri never responded. He had even gone to look for him at his St. Petersburg home too. But Yuri’s mother had taken one look at him, recognition flashing behind green eyes, and slugged him over the face so hard he saw stars. She hadn't even waited for Yuuri to explain or make excuses for himself. She would have broken his nose, and maybe his jaw too, if it hadn't been for her father restraining her. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He can’t say he blames her. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He’s glad <em>someone </em>gave him the punch he deserved.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri wonders, idly, if <em>he </em>would learn to live with the emptiness. He sure hopes not, he doesn’t want to have this ache settle, he wants to feel it. Every day, all the time, from the moment he wakes up to the moment he falls asleep until Yuri comes home.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">The only question that remains is, would Yuri <em>ever </em>come home?</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b>SIX YEARS AGO</b> </span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">It’s nearing six o’clock when Yuri makes it home, the house is empty and he slips off his shoes as he makes his way inside. Yuri has gotten used to the emptiness but it doesn’t mean he has to like it. Even back when they had been in Russia his mother had always been in and out of the apartment, always in a rush, giving him a kiss on the cheek, and waving goodbye with her arms ladened with bags and reports. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He sets his school bag on the table and sighs, debating whether to get dinner done first or knock out the laundry his mother had thrown in the dryer that morning. He looks at the calendar, it’s Friday today and he has the entire weekend to clean the house, so he supposes he can leave the laundry for later. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He rummages through the refrigerator, looking for ingredients to make Borsch because he’s feeling a little nostalgic but more than that, the soup would probably give him enough leftovers for the next couple of days. He doesn’t want to waste time cooking when he has so much to do. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He takes a look around the little living room, there were still mountains of unpacked boxes of clothes and other things they had brought with them from Russia. He’s been busy these past few months trying to adjust into his new—wholly Japanese—school so he hasn’t had the time to sit and go through everything. It didn’t help that a second wave of boxes had been sent by his grandfather in February and knowing him, he had probably packed in more things than necessary. And if he left it up to his mother, these things would remain in their boxes for the next year or two—hell, maybe forever. He’s put it off long enough but he’s really not looking forward to it. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He shakes his head, he’ll worry about that later, for now, cooking is what he should be focusing on. He first cuts the beef and sets it to boil in water. Then as he cuts up the rest of the ingredients he tries to remember the Japanese word for each vegetable but even after months, the language doesn’t seem to be sticking at all to his head. Hiragana and kanji are just squiggles in his eyes and it’s just <em>so </em>hard. He’s doing good in math because numbers are universal and he actually likes it, he’s passing English with a perfect score, and the sciences too when he does his work in English. But Japanese writing and history? He’s barely hanging on by the skin of his teeth. There’s one teacher that takes the time to hold his hand and walk him through it though, so he’s sure he’ll pass the year. If just barely.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">This was one of the reasons he had been so opposed to moving here. If it had been up to Yuri, he would have stayed in Russia with his grandfather and his mother would have let him but then after he thought about it further he realized she would not be able to survive without him. The woman was too high strung and she’d probably starve to death without Yuri there to cook for her. And more than that, her <em>toska</em> would consume her.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">When Yuri had been younger she would always sneak into his bed late at night and he would wake up sweating because she had him wrapped around her arms, holding on for dear life. As he grew older, she did it less and less but that was only because she was busier and busier. People like Yuri and his mother were ideal workers, he’d read it on an online forum once, since they were trying so <em>desperately </em>to fill the void inside them they would work until they dropped dead without complaining.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">When he finishes chopping the vegetables he sets them aside and begins cleaning the mess he made as he waits for the beef to boil. He finishes all too soon though, and the beef still isn’t ready though so he starts going through one of the smaller boxes that’s been on the kitchen table since a forever ago. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He opens it and has to keep from sighing as the world has just ended. It’s almost funny how the first box he’s going to go through are his childhood photos. Ughh, his mother and grandfather both had albums upon albums of pictures of Yuri, it’s almost embarrassing having to go through them himself. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He spends a while flipping through them, remembering that one time or the other. He actually lets out a laugh when he sees one from his mother’s twenty-seventh birthday. He had been eight years old and he had pushes her face down so hard her nose had hit the bottom cardboard. His mother had her face completely covered in icing and Yuri remembers how after the picture was taken she’d wiped her face and without warning smeared all of his face with icing too. It had turned into an all-out cake battle and even his grandfather had joined in. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Remembering that time, and remembering how much <em>fun </em>he had and how hard he had laughed only makes him wonder if there really <em>is </em>something missing.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri absentmindedly touches the back of his neck, slowly running his fingers down the length of it and easily locating the scarred skin. He often wonders what it feels like...being “whole.” His mother had tried to explain it once but he’d been so young it had gone over his head and when she realized that it was a bit cruel to talk to Yuri about it, she never brought the subject up again. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">In a way, he’s glad he doesn’t remember the time when he was complete because it’s hard to be sad about losing something you don’t remember having in the first place. He’s not like his mother, who remembers—and <em>feels</em> and <em>aches</em>.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">To Yuri, the world has always been muted, a little gray, and a little empty but he doesn’t feel like he’s missing anything. Not anymore. His mother had told him that the first two years of his life he had been a very weepy child. His marks had been gray, at the time, and he would cry often, his sadness so great and his emptiness so pronounced that he often ended up in the hospital because of it. He was always sick, his body weak, and the doctors often put him to sleep because that was better than having him awake.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">As he grew, the feeling became something that was just a part of him. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“When you feel sad,” She had told him when he was barely four, “Tell me, I will drop everything to be with you. I don’t ever want you to feel sad by yourself okay, Yurochka? Promise me.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">At the time, he hadn’t really understood. But when he was eleven, and the marks changed, his <em>toska</em> was more pronounced. There was such a deep hollowness inside him it seemed as though he had lost something vital and he couldn’t find it, he felt like his very heart had been removed from his chest. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">More than once he had said to her, crying and not knowing why, “Mama, I’m feeling lonely.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">And she would hug him, pull him close to her chest, and run her fingers through his hair. “It’s okay, Yura,” She would murmur against his skin, “I’m here. I will always be here.” Being in her arms was the only thing that made things better. He would close his eyes tightly and hug her with all the strength he had until her warmth chased away the emptiness. Until her soft singing voice lulled him to sleep and the world righted itself. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He got used to this even deeper <em>toska</em> too. Eventually, it just faded into the background and he learned to live with the sensation of having a missing limb. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He blinks, realizing that in the whole time he had been musing about things from the past the meat had finished boiling. He clicks his tongue, a little amused about it. He finishes the last steps and leaves the soup to simmer on its own. Then he pulls out the albums from the box and takes them to his mother’s study where she has a bookshelf. When he’s done with all of that, the soup is done, he pours himself a portion in a bowl, sits down on the floor, and eats his dinner. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">It’s past seven now. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">When he’s done and the dishes have been washed and dried, he lights up some incense. Yuri and his mother aren’t very devoted to the Goddess but they do believe in her, after all, she’s the one that cursed them. He doesn’t pray to her or any god yet his grandfather had instilled the habit of lightning incense into him since a young age so he could never really bring himself to stop. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri sighs, watching the sticks of incense burn, and wonders if his mother would come back at some reasonable hour today. He touches his neck again, a nervous tick he’s never been able to shake despite everything the marks on his skin entailed.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri can almost see them, in his mind’s eye, countless times he had taken pictures of them trying to imagine what they would have looked like when he was born. They’re two six-pronged ice crystals, unique in their design, and only two other people in the universe had matching sets.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">His marks, however, are charred black, a sign of a rejected soulmate.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">The blond looks around the living room again and decides to stop musing and get to work. He doesn’t know how many hours pass but he manages to go through seven boxes and when he looks up from his work, he realizes that he’s made an even bigger mess but it’s fine, by Sunday night he would have this house looking presentable. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He looks at his phone at sees that its already nearing twelve so he thinks about calling it a day. He sits on the couch and scrolls through Twitter and Instagram for a few minutes and after a while, he hears the telltale sign of the door unlocking and his mother pushing herself inside.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">She takes off her shoes and lets all the bags she’s carrying drop to the floor in a heap. She sighs, and when she looks at the mess she scrunches her face in distaste, “Wow, I didn’t think we had this many things...”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“This and more,” Yuri tells her, not taking his eyes off the screen off his phone.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Yuuuuraaaaa,” His mother whines, walking to where he’s sitting and flopping on the couch to rest her head on his lap, “I missed you <em>soo </em>much.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Mmmm,” He hums.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">She hugs him, burrowing her face on his stomach, “Ugh, I hate my boss. He had me redo the design four times before he was satisfied.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Sucks,” Yuri murmurs. They lapse into silence and he pretends like her eyes aren’t boring into his face. His brow quirks and he finally locks his phone and looks down at her. She gives him the cheekiest grin and Yuri really doesn’t feel like dealing with her. He scrunches his nose. “What?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“I’m still on time, so don’t be mad.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Anya.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Oh, you don’t have to pretend,” She sits up, grabbing his cheeks and pinching them. He tries to slap her hands away but she only grabs them harder. “My little boy is all grown up.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He rolls his eyes, “It’s already eleven fifty-seven, the day is practically over.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“It still gives me enough time to wish the most handsome man in my life a Happy Birthday.” She kisses both of his cheeks and he gags. His mother laughs, standing up and pulling him by the hand, “Come on, let’s eat cake and I’ll even let you drink some wine.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“You’re a terrible adult.” He says but he lets himself be pulled along, “Offering a minor alcohol.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Nu-uh,” She childishly says, “I’m being responsible. Better have you do it where I can see you.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“You just want wine.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“That too, but I can kill two birds with one stone.” She lets his hand go, and moves around the kitchen, pulling out the cake she bought since last night and the wine from the pantry, and Yuri grabs the plates, glasses, and the forks. They clear up some of the mess on the table and place the little cake down. She lights up the lonely candle and claps her hands as she sings to him. When she’s done, she smiles at him softly, “Happy fifteenth birthday. Make a wish.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri blows the candle out, not bothering to make a wish, he has never made a wish because he doesn’t ever know what to wish for when he’s put on the spot like that. His mother cuts the cake and gives him a piece and she fills up his wineglass. “A toast,” She says, raising her glass, “To a grown-up Yurochka!”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He smiles, finally, shaking his head and her eyes twinkle in victory. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri hasn’t had the heart to tell her that he’s been lonelier than ever since coming to Japan, not when she’s always so stressed and busy. But she knows him too well and despite him playing pretend, she’s already seen right through him.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri doesn’t really get the whole thing that Japanese middle schoolers have for choosing a high school. They seem to stress about it quite a bit but Yuri chooses to go to Hasetsu High School without any fanfare. It’s the closest school in the area and he likes their uniforms. It’s navy blue and the jacket is a gakuran that hides his marks well when he puts his hair up in a ponytail. He's always kept his hair long since his marks would be visible otherwise but it really sucked during the summer. He’d gotten some shit from the administration about the length of it but his mother had gone to speak to the principal directly and they had to waive the rules for him.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He’s a first-year foreigner with long blond hair, it boils the blood of some of the third and second years, and more than once he’d found his indoor shoes in the trash. The other first-years shunned him in his classroom too, but the thing the Japanese don’t understand about Yuri is that he could not give a fuck. Their petty attempts at bullying pale in comparison to the shit hole school he'd gone to before he came to Japan.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Just two weeks ago he’d been confronted by three wannabe delinquents in the back of the school. They had looked at Yuri’s small frame and thought—he doesn’t know—that he was some type of spineless dumbass?</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri had ended up with a nasty split lip but that was only because they had ganged up on him. He’d rearranged some noses though, so he wasn’t particularly upset about it. The principal had given him a severe scolding and Yuri had just listened to the man rant until he caught on to the fact that Yuri wasn’t understanding a word he was saying. It hadn’t been his fault so he’s let off the hook with a slap on the wrist. His mother had laughed when she saw him pouting about his lip later that night. The only good thing that came out of all that is that now most of his peers steered clear of him. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He’s walking through the streets after school, not really paying attention to much when he hears it. For a moment, he doesn’t quite realize it, but after a heartbeat or two he blinks and realizes that someone is singing. And more than that, someone is singing in <em>Russian. </em></span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He looks up, searching for the origin and he walks further up the street until he’s turning the corner and then—as the world gains a little more color—he comes face to face with a man watering flowers. He’s not paying attention to Yuri and he can only see his profile, his silver hair is covering his eyes, but his mouth is moving and though his voice isn’t all that great, Yuri heart still stutters because it’s been so long since he <em>understood </em>anything in this forsaken country. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He doesn’t know how long he stands there, just watching the man water the flowers and listening to him sing, like a creep. But suddenly, the man is turning towards him—and the world slows, it almost seems to still—when their eyes meet. His ice-blue eyes widen just a little and Yuri feels small when all his attention is on him. He feels his cheeks redden and he hates it.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“S-sorry,” He says, “I just—I was—walking and I heard you.“</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">The older man’s eyebrows shoot up and exclaims, “You’re Russian!”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri nods, “Y-yeah...”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“That’s wonderful!” He says, giving Yuri a wide smile that makes his stomach do some weird somersaults, “I don’t meet many Russian foreigners often.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri doesn’t really know what to say to that and he looks around and it finally clicks. He’s in front of Yu-Topia Katsuki the place he’s supposed to start working...today. He blinks and asks the older man, “You’re a guest?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Oh, no! I run this place with my husband.” He says, then he looks at Yuri up and down, “And you must be new worker he mentioned?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri nods, a little dumbly, the somersaults in his stomach failing and crash landing on the floor. Well, good riddance to that bullshit. “Yes, my name’s Yuri Plisetsky.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“I’m Viktor Nikiforov.” He extends his hand, “It’s nice to meet you.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Likewise,” Yuri murmurs, enclosing his hand around the larger one.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">A few days ago, Yuri had met another Yuuri in the porch of a flower shop when they were both taking refuge from a storm that had begun to pour. The Japanese man had made conversation with him and had been surprised to learn that Yuri was actually from Russia. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“What a coincidence!” He had exclaimed, but he never told Yuri what the coincidence was because they started talking about other things. Eventually, the conversation had turned to the fact that Yuri was looking for a job and Yuuri mentioned he was looking for some help in the hot spring resort he ran. He’d offered Yuri a chance and well, Yuri was desperate enough to take it. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">After Viktor takes him inside to introduce him to the rest of the family he’s given a tour of the resort. He follows behind Yuuri and Viktor as they explain to him what his duties will be and what’s expected of him. He nods along realizing that he’s actually looking forward to it. He’s mostly going to be helping out in the kitchen and cleaning, things he has more than enough experience with. (He prides himself in his knife skills and how well the floors shine when he’s through scrubbing them.) He won’t have to interact with the guests, and that had been his primary fear since he’s not a people person and if they spoke Japanese he wouldn’t know what to tell them.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">When the tour is done, Yuuri’s sister makes the comment, “Won’t it be hard to keep track of two Yuri’s? Maybe we can call you Yurio?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri cringes, that’s ugly. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Yurio doesn’t sound bad,” Yuuri’s mother says and everyone seems to be in agreement, and if he doesn’t do something these people will make that awful name stick.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“NO!” He exclaims and he flushes when everyone flinches and they look at him in alarm. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to shout but ju-just call me Yura.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Yura,” Yuuri says, trying out the name on his tongue and it makes the tips of Yuri’s ears heat up. He’s glad his hair covers them.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Alright!” Viktor says, clapping, “Yura! It’s decided.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">In the following weeks, Yuri keeps mostly to himself. He cleans the restrooms and the springs every day and helps missus Hiroko chopping vegetables when the people come to the restaurant to eat her famous Katsudon for dinner. He works efficiently over the sound of their indistinguishable chatter and he always has to pause when he hears the patrons talking and he can actually understand some of the words they’re saying. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">His mother hadn’t really wanted Yuri to work but he figured this would be a good way to submerge himself in the language and learn faster. It’s not going as fast as he thought it would though, mostly because Yuuri talks to him in English and Viktor in Russian, but he’s managing to not have many misunderstandings with the rest of the Katsuki family. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He works after school, from four to ten and during the weekends. It’s not too hard and since it’s the offseason he has time to adjust without getting flooded with work. He doesn’t have time to do his homework after school now so he does it during lunch in the library after he’s done wolfing down his daily sandwich. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">On the weekends he usually gets off at five rather than ten and it’s on a Saturday that Yuuri casually invites him to come to their house for dinner. Yuri looks at the older man blankly for a beat to long and Yuuri laughs awkwardly, “Um, we just want to know you a little better.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Well,” Yuri starts, “I guess.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Great!” Yuuri exclaims and leads him...to the back of the resort. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Wow,” The blond says dryly, “You guys sure do live far.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">The Japanese man laughs, “Viktor and I wanted some privacy from the rest of my family but we couldn’t move too far away.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Mmmm,” Yuri hums taking in the little house that they lived in. It was cute, he supposed. Domestic and romantic and all that shit. It suited them. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">When Yuuri slides the door open to their home, they’re instantly greeted by two dogs. They look like carbon copies of each other, except one’s a miniature version.He tells Yuri, “I hope you don’t mind dogs.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“That’s probably something you should’ve asked me before I got here.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“O-oh, you’re right...” He looks down at his pets a little lost, “I can...lock them in the bedroom?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri resists the urge to roll his eyes, “I don’t mind them. I was just joking.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri lets out a relieved chuckle, “I...find it hard to tell when you’re joking. You’re always so serious.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1"><em>I’m just trying to be professional. </em>Yuri thinks but doesn’t tell him.<em> You’re my boss.</em></span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">They make their way inside and Viktor is finishing up dinner and when he looks up at them he gives a smile, “I’m so glad you came! We haven’t really had time to sit down and talk to you.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri nods because he doesn’t know what to say. This <em>whole </em>situation is weird. Yuri sucks at talking to people, he can never seem to be able to make conversation. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Take a seat,” Yuuri says, gesturing to the table, “We’ll bring out the food.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He stands awkwardly in the middle of their living room as Yuuri goes to the kitchen to pick up the plates. He wonders if he should ask if there’s anything he could help with but ultimately just decides to do as Yuuri had said. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He sits and waits with his hands on his lap and wishing so terribly that he had refused the invitation. Pretty soon the couple is setting down the food on the table and they’re taking their seats across from him. He sees how the light of the dining room catches on each of their wedding bands and tears his eyes away to stare at the variety of food they’ve brought out.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">It’s a fusion of Japanese and Russian. The rice has little shrimps mixed in and as he sees what the main dish is, he almost cringes. It’s a mixture of fish, lobster, crab, and squid.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri’s allergic to shellfish. Fuck. He hates this damned port city. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He doesn’t want to inconvenience them since they’d been nice enough to invite him but he—he might actually die later tonight if he ingests that. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Viktor notices him staring at the food, “Do you not like seafood?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri looks up to meet his blue eyes and looks back down instantly, he swallows, “No-no it’s not that.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Should he say something stupid like he’s vegetarian or something? Or that he’s not that hungry? Maybe he can like...eat one or two spoons of each thing and hope that he doesn’t puke his guts out later? <em>Or </em>he can stop being an idiot and just <em>tell </em>them he’s allergic and not have to deal with the pain. It’s not even a big deal, lots of people have seafood allergies but he doesn’t—he doesn’t want to—to ruin dinner and what the <em>fuck</em>? This isn’t some date and these aren’t people he has to impress or entertain. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He looks up to realize both their gazes have been on him in the entire time he had been contemplating what to do and he flushes.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“I—“ He starts, stops, clears his throat, and says, “I’m allergic to shellfish.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Their faces light up in surprise and embarrassment follows quickly.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Oh!” Yuuri exclaims, “We are <em>so </em>sorry we didn’t—we didn’t even ask.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">They both scramble from their seat, taking the plates away as if just by looking at the food Yuri would start dying. He starts getting up from the table too, “The food with go to waste. I—I can go—“</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“No. No-no-no.” Viktor says shaking head waving his hand, “Don’t worry about this, we’ll just order pizza and this will be our lunch.” He stops and looks at Yuri, “Do you like pizza?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Y-yeah,” He answers.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Great!” He says, relived, “Just—just give us a few minutes.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“I can—“</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“You’re not leaving without eating first,” The older man tells him, “So just take a seat and relax.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri falls back in the chair, trying to not show how displeased he is and how much he really, <em>really </em>wishes he could just go home. He pulls out his phone and pretends to look it over as he hears Yuuri and Viktor furiously whispering to each other. When they’re finally done arguing or doing whatever the fuck married people do when neither of them knows what to do, Viktor pulls out his phone and calls to place the order for the pizza. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">It’s going to take twenty agonizing minutes for the pizza to arrive and in the meantime, Viktor and Yuuri sit across from him and ask him all sorts of generic questions. How’s school? Does he like it? Did he get along with his classmates? How long has he been in Japan? Why did he move here? How long was he going to stay? Does he like the environment he’s working in? What part of Russia is he from? Does he miss it?</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">His answers are all short and to the point. School’s fine (Half-truth). He likes it (Lie). Yes (Lie). He’s been in Japan for almost a year (Truth). They moved because of his mother’s job (Truth). He didn’t know (Truth). Yes (Half-truth). Moscow (Half-truth). Not much (Lie).</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri’s all too glad when there’s a knock at the door and the pizza is finally here. Yuuri sets it on the table and he gives Yuri two slices on a plate. He eats them without talking, hoping that the faster he gets done eating the faster he’ll escape this painfully awkward dinner. Unfortunately for him, they seem to have other ideas. They insist on Yuuri driving him home. By this point, he just wants to get this over with so he reluctantly agrees. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He hopes that they realize after this that he’s a terrible companion to have around and that they won’t invite him over again.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Unfortunately for him, <em>again</em>, it seems that they’ve taken him and his prickly attitude as a challenge. So they keep inviting him to dinner and Yuri keeps being unable to say no. <em>Why </em>do they keep doing this? He doesn’t understand!</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">It really sucks for him because <em>fuck</em> he really thinks he has a crush now. On Yuuri, on Viktor, on both of them and it’s kinda fucked up. Yuri has two soulmate marks so he knows he’s probably just projecting on to them the love he wishes he had.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri hasn’t confirmed it one hundred percent but he suspects they’re soulmates. They must be, he sees the way they look at each other with so much love and affection. They also seem to be on the same wavelength, emotionally, and he knows that's something only soulmates are able to do. It seems that they’re unable to live without each other and even Yuri, with his muted, gray world is able to tell that they’re perfect for each other. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">It makes him laugh, self-deprecatingly, and think, <em>That’s something you’ll never have.</em></span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri doesn’t want to be weird but Viktor and Yuuri are both <em>so handsome</em> that sometimes when they talk to him he’s so distracted by their faces that he has to ask them to repeat themselves because he hadn’t heard a thing they initially said. He’s so embarrassed by it all. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">One day, things change though. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">It begins, with Yuuri and Viktor inviting him over and him once again reluctantly agreeing. It seems as though the dinner would be like all the others but this time, something has changed. In addition to their two dogs, there’s a kitten. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">As soon as Yuri sees it, he can’t stop the smile from blooming on his face and he exclaims, “You guys have a kitten!”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He doesn’t idle around their hallway this time as he usually does, instead, he walks right in, past both of them as if this was a place he owned, and picks the little thing up in his arms. “It’s <em>so </em>cute! What’s its name?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He’s too busy playing with the little kitten to pay attention to the way both Yuuri and Viktor seem to jolt at his sharp change in mood. Viktor swallows thickly and Yuuri’s arms fall uselessly at his side as they stare at Yuri like they’re seeing him for the first time. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He looks up when neither of them answers him and notices their weird stares, he tilts his head, “What?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Viktor clears his throat, “N-nothing. We’re just—just shocked. This is the first time we’ve seen you so expressive.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“O-oh, umm, I like cats.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“I’m—I’m going—to,” Yuuri stutters, “I forgot—I—I’ll be right back.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He turns and quite literally flees, in Yuri’s opinion. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri looks at Viktor a little confused. He holds up the kitten, “Does it have a name?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“N-not yet. We found her abandoned in a box yesterday.” He comes to stand next to Yuri and he pets her head. “You—you can name her, if you want.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He looks up at Viktor and smiles, “Really?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">The older man looks at Yuri strangely almost—fondly. He delicately pushes some of Yuri’s blond hair behind his ear and says softly, “Yes. Anything you want.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Soul bonds are beautiful things. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He’s read books about them, countless of poetry has been written, he’s heard songs and seen movies and everywhere he looks, soul bonds are just something everyone will eventually have. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">But not Yuri. And not people like Yuri.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">A gray soulmate mark is a sign of an unwanted bond and a black one means <em>the end</em>. It meant that the bond was severed because it was so greatly despised and abhorred that they could not live with it. When Yuri was born he had two marks, on the back of his neck, one below the other, and they had been pure white for the first seven months. Then, one of them had turned gray, and a year later, the other one too. Both his soulmates didn’t want him and the <em>toska </em>settled in Yuri long before he had the chance to understand it.</span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">His soulmate bonds had been fully rejected when he was eleven, both at the same time. Yuri still remembers crying and crying and <em>crying</em>. So hopelessly and brokenly. He remembers feeling like he was drowning in the blackest, most desolate ocean. Many people were known to die of this pain and the only reason Yuri had survived was because of his mother’s love. Familial love had been proven to ease the deep ache and since Yuri had been so young, it had been easy to get used to. Children were always so much easier to comfort when they had been rejected, because they adapted, eventually. But more than that, it was because they forgave easily. </span>
</p>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Cruelty at it’s finest.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Part II—Hurt</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b>This sorrow hurts me,</b> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b>Burns me, without your love.</b> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b>I have you caught</b> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b>Between my skin and my soul.</b> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>—Rayando el Sol</em> </span>
</p><hr/><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b>PRESENT DAY</b> </span>
</p><hr/><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri has him blocked on Instagram. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Though that’s not really a shock to Viktor, so he’d made another account just to spy on him and like all his photos. Yuri has close to 250K followers so it’s not like he can keep track of every account that follows him. He’s sure Yuri knows that he can see all his content but it’s the message that he’s sending having Viktor’s personal account blocked that’s the point. But the kid is always doing dangerous stunts so he just wants to keep track of his wellbeing and also, well, just to see his smiling face. It’s all he has now.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He’ll never get used to the sensation of living without him.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Which is why he’d been so upset seven months ago when Yuri had announced to all his followers that he would be going dark for an unknown period of time. He didn’t appear in any of the vlogs Mila and Otabek had uploaded recently but Viktor still kept up with their videos because sometimes they would update about what Yuri was up to. “He called the other day,” They would say, “He’s doing good, he says hi.” But that was about it.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">It makes Viktor anxious—and that’s usually Yuuri’s area of expertise—not knowing what his younger soulmate is doing. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">It doesn’t help that a large rift has grown between Yuuri and him. It had been unintentional but it only further confirmed that they had taken the wrong decision years ago and now they were paying a heavy price for it. Taking away the fact that they were soul bonded, they were...a little incompatible in other areas. Since they met, they had heavily relied on the bond to understand each other and now that it was incomplete, they didn’t communicate well verbally. There had been many arguments and hurt feelings that they no longer even slept in the same room. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Their arguing only seemed to make Yuri’s absence more pronounced.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Viktor had been born without a soulmate mark, it wasn’t that uncommon since sometimes there were age differences. He’d gotten his first mark when he was four and he remembers it happening, faintly. He had been playing at the park when he felt a sharp burn on his chest. After the pain faded, all that was left was a white soulmate mark right under his collar bone. That should have been the end of it.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">But when Viktor was twelve, while he had been going home from school, he felt another burn on his skin and since then, there had been <em>two </em>marks. One right below the other. He’d been confused at first since no one he knew had more that one mark. He asks about it to his father and his father says with disgust in his voice, “People with more than one soulmate aren’t children of the Goddess, they’re <em>abominations</em>. You should never associate with them.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Viktor had quickly learned that in the eyes of many, having more than one soulmate was not normal. His family, who was devoted to the Goddess, often talked about it like it was a curse. They would often say, “We’re lucky no one we know has more than one mark.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He never dared to talk to anyone about them and kept his marks hidden. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">What bothered him though, was the fact that one of his soulmates was <em>twelve years </em>younger. Twelve. <em>Twelve. </em>It made him sick in the stomach and as he got older all he could think about was the fact that one of his soulmates was a <em>child</em>. He’d been seventeen and looked at one of his five-year-old cousins and think, <em>my soulmate is their age </em>and just be disgusted with it. He hated his second mark, hated it because it meant that someday he would pay attention to someone twelve years younger than him. It was so fucked up.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">So when Yuuri asked him to reject the second mark, a month after they had married, he’d been all too eager to do it and—almost instantly regretted it. He’d rejected an eleven-year-old, who had done nothing wrong but exist. His guilt is made worse still by the fact that his two marks are still white because his younger soulmate had still been too young to reject him. But it had been easy to hurt someone if he didn't know who they were, and if he didn't have to look at them in the eye and see the damage he caused, so he had continued living his life, thinking he could avoid it forever. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">But Yuri had grown up, and he’d been hurt and angry, and he’d rejected them too and now Viktor and Yuuri understood that just having two-thirds of the bond was not enough to be complete. Yuuri and he had not slept the night Yuri left their house and his mother had called them and told them that if they <em>ever </em>came near him again she was going to break their necks. Sometime during the early hours of the morning, one of their marks had turned black and the <em>thing </em>they had felt inside them had been so intense, so debilitating, that both of them had passed out at the same time and when they woke up, the world had been empty. </span>
</p><hr/><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b>FIVE YEARS AGO</b> </span>
</p><hr/><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">After Yuuri and Viktor get their cat, they’re unable to get rid of Yuri.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He’d say he’s sorry about it if it didn’t feel like that had been their intention all along. They’d let him name her, so he felt invested in her wellbeing, and therefore any moment he had free time, he’d be at their house taking care of her. He didn’t even mind that Makkachin and Vicchan would climb all over him while he was sitting on the floor of the living room with Potya in his arms. So since last summer, it became a common sight to find Yuri sitting on the couch with three furry animals using him as a pillow. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">There had been a few good things that came out of this arrangement. For one thing, Yuuri would help him with his Japanese homework and Yuri wasn’t constantly failing his classes. And secondly, he found...companionship. It’d been a little weird at first since both of his bosses were an average of a decade older than him. Eventually, though, Yuri got over the strangeness of it. They seemed to be genuine in their kindness and they had even met his mom. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Since he basically saw them every day and he didn’t want to be a creep about it, he pushed down the crush he was nursing for them until it became something he could brush off. Or at least he <em>tried</em>, he’s not sure how well a job he’s been doing. His mother had seen right through him so maybe he’s really obvious about it but they’d never commented and Yuri was all too happy to continue to play ignorant. (Also, if he got off to the thought of them at three AM nearly three times a week literally <em>nobody had to know ok?</em>)</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Because his Japanese has improved he’s able to communicate with the rest of Yuuri’s family better now too, so work almost becomes...fun. He has various competitions with Mari to see who can peel potatoes faster or who can chop the most onions without crying. Missus Hiroko teaches him how to make her amazing Katsudon and other dishes that he then cooks for his mother. He even gets mister Toshiya to teach him how to play shogi, though Yuri’s pretty terrible at it and he gets beat every. single. time. He gets well with the other workers too, though that’s mostly because they’re older and generally focused on their jobs like he is. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">When he’s in his second year of high school, a lot of the students just know him as that one kid that works at the hot springs resort and they’re nicer to him. Or at least, not actively trying to spite him just because of the length of his hair. He even gains some respect when the teacher calls on him to solve a calculus problem on the board and he has it done in less than ten seconds. He’d been hounded by the math club for a while because they wanted him to join but Yuri didn’t want to stop working. But despite the fact he refused they would occasionally invite him to be their opponent when they were practicing for competitions.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Between school and working at Yu-Topia the days pass faster and sometimes Yuri will look up at the calendar and be shocked that the months have gone by so quickly. Since he’s so busy all the time he doesn’t have to stop and contemplate his <em>toska </em>and he hasn’t had a major episode in a long, long time.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He’s nearing the tail end of his second year of high school when Yu-Topia hires another high schooler to help them out. His name is Minami, they’re in the same class, and Yuri can barely stand being in the same room as him. He’s literally the <em>worst </em>and he makes googly eyes at Yuuri and is always running after him like he somehow hung the stars in the sky. Viktor thinks it’s the most hilarious thing and Yuri has to bite down every jealous comment his mouth wants to spit out. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Yura it’s <em>fine</em>,” He says, holding back a laugh as Minami tries to impress Yuuri with his brush handling technique. It’s all very fucking gross, ok. “He’s just a kid with a little crush.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri almost snarls, “He fucking pushed me off the fucking bench the other day so he could sit next to him.” </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Viktor’s laugh resounds in the room, “But then you got to sit next to me, so win-win.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“I was there <em>first</em>, jackass. That’s the <em>point</em>.” The blond makes a face and belatedly adds, “And who’d think sitting next to you was win anyway? You stink of decay.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Oh, Yura,” The older man sighs, sliding an arm over his shoulder and pulling him close, “You don’t have to be jealous.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“I’m not <em>jealous</em>.” </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Are you sure? You seem like it to me.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Fuck off, no I’m not.” Yuri tries to shrug off his hug but Viktor rests his entire weight on him and he can’t escape. The older man pokes his cheek with soapy fingers and he slaps his hand away.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“I’m sure Minami will get over it once he finds his soulmate. You know that’s how it usually works.” The words are said in a way that’s meant to ease Yuri’s annoyance, but they only make his heart give a painful beat. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Yeah, whatever,” He mutters sulkily, ducking and walking off and leaving Viktor to catch his balance on his own. Yuri forgets sometimes that he’s <em>also </em>just a kid with a crush. But unlike Minami, he will probably not get over it once he finds his soulmate because there is no soulmate to find. Whatever. Once he graduates high school he’ll go off to university and forget this feeling and maybe them too. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">They’ve been cleaning the inside of the women’s section of the hot springs since early in the morning and it’s always a pain having to drain the pools but just remembering how the stupid ignoramus had made it look like it had been an accident just makes his blood boil even more. He wishes there was a way to make punching Minami in the face look like an accident. He doubts anyone would believe it though. And his mother had always made it a point to tell him not to use the skills she taught him as a way to get revenge. She’d always say, <em>Yura, I don’t want any problems okay? This is purely for self-defense. </em></span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">So instead he grabs the hose and while Minami is busy telling Yuuri something about how he’s always admired his amazing work ethic—yeah, yeah what a <em>suck</em> up—he aims the nozzle right between his shoulder blades and presses on the grip. The older boy squawks when he feels the cold water hitting him and he sputters as Yuuri laughs. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Don’t be mean to our new worker Yura!” </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“I’m not being mean,” He says, an evil grin overtaking his lips, “This is just how we welcome newcomers.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">It really wasn’t, but Yuuri and Viktor had done it to him way back when he first started so as the <em>senpai </em>he felt the need to make this a tradition. (And watching as Minami cry about his hair was probably the icing on the cake.)</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">By the time both Yuri and Minami are in their third year of school, Minami’s crush does fade, though it’s only a little bit but it’s enough to make him tolerable. So one could say he and Yuri become...friends? Well, acquaintances is the better word. Or maybe just coworkers that sometimes see each other at school and eat lunch together on the roof. Fuck, don’t make him admit that he actually gets along well with the idiot. It’d ruin his reputation.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Are you working this weekend?” Minami questions one day while they’re on their lunch break.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Yeah, I wasn’t going to but Viktor and Yuuri said some college kids made a last-minute reservation.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“You’re pretty close to them, aren’t you?” He muses between taking bites of his bento.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“You are too,” Yuri responds, flipping through the newest issue of Jump that Minami bought that morning.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Minami gives a little shrug, “But not like you.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri raises an eyebrow, and looks at him over the magazine, “Like me?”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“I don’t know if you know this but <em>I </em>don’t have a key to their house.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“That’s only because I feed their pets during my breaks.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Minami makes a noise, unsatisfied. “You just don’t see it.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">The blond rolls his eyes, “There’s nothing to see.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1"><em>(But there is, </em>Minami privately thinks to himself. Yuuri and Viktor are nice to him, sure. They’ve invited him over for dinner a couple of times too. But with Yuri it’s different. They <em>doted </em>on him. Subtly, but they did. If one day Yuri absentmindedly said he wanted homemade strawberry jam a couple of days later he would have it. Or if he said he wanted to watch a certain movie Minami would suddenly see it playing in the waiting area TV. Hell, if Yuri said he wanted Alenka Chocolates somehow, someway, he got it and would be munching on a bar during his break. At first, Minami had thought it was because they were trying to be nice in a brotherly way but the more he observed the more he realized that they really just spoiled him. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Generally, the Katsuki’s would give the leftover food of the day to the workers once the last of the guests was done eating. Most of the time this food was shrimp tempura or squid, things Yuri couldn’t eat, but always, without fail, either Yuuri or Viktor would make dinner especially for him. More than once, as the day ended he had heard them ask the blond, “What do you want for dinner?”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">And yeah, maybe it wasn’t a big deal, but there were moments when they would give him this <em>look </em>when they thought no one was looking and it made Minami almost embarrassed. And he didn’t know why.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Just the other day, the resort had been super slow and they hadn’t had any guests come into the springs or the restaurant so they’d all gathered around the TV to watch a variety show, even Hiroko-san had joined. Yuri had fallen asleep with his head on the table and both Yuuri and Viktor went out of their way to make him comfortable. They carefully laid his head on Viktor’s lap and his legs on Yuuri’s and Minami had sat there, all weirded out about it. He supposed it could be all...in a brotherly way but...it was just <em>weird.) </em></span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Anyway,” Yuri cuts his thoughts short, “What’d you get in the calculus test?”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Minami groans, covering his face, “I don’t wanna talk about it.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri snorts, “You’re going to have to take remedial classes then.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Don’t remind me!” The other boy almost wails, “I hate it here!”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Summer vacation that year doesn’t feel different at all. As he has the past two years, he works from seven AM to three PM and after work, he’ll go to Yuuri and Viktor’s house to do homework or watch a movie until they finish up and they can have dinner together. Then he goes home to deal with his workaholic mother who barely manages to get home before nine on a good day. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">So maybe he gets too comfortable. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri has always been extra careful about hiding his marks. It’s a thing that he’s been cautious about every single day of his life so he <em>doesn’t </em>forget. He either has his hair down or wears high necked shirts, always, always, <em>always.</em></span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">But on this particular day, it’s hot as <em>fuck </em>and the house AC is down. He’s opened all the windows and the fan in the living room is working overtime trying to keep Makkachin, Vicchan, and Potya all cool. Yuri is also feeling like he needs to peel his own skin off to be comfortable. He takes a look at his phone and sees that it’s still barely four, so Viktor and Yuuri won’t be back for another two hours. So, he does the one thing he’d never done anywhere but at his own house; he takes his shirt off and picks up his hair in a bun. Then he grabs some popsicles from the fridge and gives one to each pet in a bowl and sits on the floor with them to eat his own as he scrolls through his phone. His mistake is falling asleep. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri doesn’t know when it happens or how but one moment he’s laying down on his stomach to get more comfortable and then he’s out like a light. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">When he blinks his eyes open, the fan is turned off and all the animals have left to be somewhere else. Yuri’s head is elevated and it’s not until he feels someone shift under him a little that he realizes that it’s because he’s laying his head on Yuuri’s lap. Almost instantly, he tenses, and his already dried mouth is suddenly turning into a desert. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Are you—“ Yuuri begins and Yuri sits up so quickly he barely manages to evade from slamming their heads together. He slaps a hand to the back of his neck and feels his eyes stinging. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Yur—“</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Did you see them?” He croaks. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Well—“</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Did you?” He forcefully asks, turning to look at him in the eyes. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri swallows and he nods, “Yes, we both did.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“I see...” Yuri answers, his breath shuddering and his heart beating so painfully it seems as though it wants to lurch out his ribcage. He brings his knees up to his chest and feels small.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Yuuri is running his hands over his hair and telling him with a trembling voice, “It’s okay, Yura.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He shakes his head, “No-no it’s not. I didn’t want—I didn't want anyone to see them.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“So-sorry, we didn’t mean—“</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri pulls on the hair tie and his hair falls out, covering his—awful, ugly, sad—marks. He quickly stands, pulls his shirt on, and announces, “I’m going home.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“NO!” Yuuri exclaims, catching him by the arm, “Ju-just—please. Wait. Please.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“But I—I—“ </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">The Japanese man stands and grabs Yuri’s face in his hands to make him look at him in the eyes, “Please. Yuri.” </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri feels like he’s drowning a little and he grabs on to Yuuri’s shirt desperately, trying to use him as an anchor. He could push him away, and not deal with their pity and their <em>I’m sorry for your situation </em>talk that everyone seemed to give him when they found out about it. Yuri has been in and out of hospitals since he was a child and everyone, everyone always <em>pitied </em>him and he had always <em>detested </em>it. It had always made the fact that he was ‘incomplete’ more real, more annoying. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">But this is Viktor and Yuuri, and he knows he can trust them. He can, he just has to <em>let </em>himself trust them. He swallows thickly and Yuuri’s hands are still firmly cupping his face, he nods, and the older man gives a sigh of relief.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Viktor went to get us some dinner okay? I’ll make you some tea.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">When Viktor comes back from buying them Italian take out, they sit around the table as they eat and Yuri tries to keep his embarrassing sniffing down to a minimum. They don’t immediately jump at him trying to comfort him and Yuri’s grateful for it. When dinner is over, they just ask, “Do you want to talk about it?”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“What’s there to talk about?” Yuri spits back instinctively and bites down on his tongue. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Viktor sighs, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But if you do, we’ll listen to whatever you have to say.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“It’s stupid,” He murmurs.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“No it isn’t,” Yuuri answers, “It’s...very important.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri leans back on the chair, looking up at the ceiling and trying not to meet their eyes, “There’s really not much to say, my marks have been rejected for a long time. I...sometimes I have rough episodes of...emptiness? But it’s been a long time and I generally sleep through them when I do.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">He misses the way Viktor’s eyebrows pull together in shame, “When was the last time you had an episode?”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Uh, probably...like two years ago, before I started working.” He lowers his head, looking at them now, “I’ve been dealing with them for a long time so it’s nothing major.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">They shift, both uncomfortable and Yuri hates himself for being the cause. He knows everything about his situation is...taboo. His marks are black and there are two. Most people didn’t accept that a person could have more than one soul mate. He wondered if they were like that too.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri had been born outside a soulmate bond and therefore, his mother’s soulmate hated him. He had been one of those fanatical believers that thought that anything the existed outside a soulmate relationship was blasphemy against the Goddess. He made his mother chose between the two of them but his mother had refused to abandon Yuri. Her soulmate hadn’t been too happy about her decision. Yuri still remembers the day it had happened. She had felt everything intently, one day she was ‘complete’ and the other day the <em>toska </em>was there. She tried to drown it under work but it’s hard, even for people like Yuri that have dealt with it for years, he can tell how much it takes on her.</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Viktor clears his throat, “I’m...sorry.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">Yuri rolls his eyes, the tears thick but at least they don’t slip down his cheeks, “It’s not like there’s anything you can do about it.”</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">This time, he does not miss how both of them look away from him, their faces terribly sad.</span>
</p><hr/><p class="p5">
  <strong> <span class="s1">FOUR YEARS AGO</span> </strong>
</p><hr/><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">After Yuuri and Viktor had seen his marks, Yuri felt something like relief. He’d been hiding them for so long that he didn’t realize how much he stressed about them. He continues hiding them though because it’s just a habit at this point. And also....there are moments when he feels them distant as if they didn’t want to have to see his marks. It makes something sting inside him but it’s not as though he doesn’t understand. It’s something unusual, it’s fine if they don’t get it, after all, they’re a perfect pair, it must not be easy to try to understand what it’s like being in Yuri’s shoes.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">But he’s grateful they continue to treat him like normal the majority of the time.And more than ever, he longs for them in quiet agony. He can’t help it, can’t stop wanting them to notice him. He’s sure that no matter how much he tried to hide it, they know about his crush. (Though it’s been so long it’s can’t be classified as a crush anymore but he doesn’t want to use the L-word because that would imply too much.) He knows that he’s gotten too comfortable with them so it’s better to nip this thing in the bud before it grows into something he can’t control. (This was advice from his mother and despite the fact that it had hurt him—they had a spectacular screaming match about it—he’s glad that she can see the things he can’t.)</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He’s been going to their house less lately since he’s busy studying and preparing for university entrance exams but in November, they ask him to go to the festival with them and Yuri can’t say no. The first year he was here, he had worked the days of the festival, and the second year, he’d gone with his mother and ate until both of them felt like balloons. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri always participates in the parade, pulling the float that represents his district, so he won’t be able to get away to meet them until late when the fireworks would start. So Viktor and Yuri spend the majority of the time playing games and trying to fish for goldfish (and failing) and eating sweets and fried chicken. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">When it’s nearing the time for the fireworks to start, they find a nice spot that overlooks all the stalls and Yuuri comes just as the first firework lights up the night sky. Yuri takes pictures, of course. And as he goes through them, he realizes that now would be a good excuse to take a picture with them. He might never have this chance again.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Let’s take a picture,” He says, holding up his phone. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Sure!” Viktor exclaims as he scoots closer to Yuri. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Here,” Yuri tells the older man, as Yuuri also gets closer, and he can feel their body heat through his shirt and he tries so fucking hard to not let it affect him, “You take it, you have longer arms.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Yuri ends up looking at that picture multiple times over the next coming months. He cherishes it so much it almost hurts. At night, just before he goes to sleep he’ll take his time looking at each of them and wonders what it would be like to have his love returned and what it would be like to be <em>with </em>them. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">February comes quickly and soon he’s going to be turning eighteen and he’ll <em>finally</em> graduate high school. He’s been accepted to Kyoto University and will be studying Informatics and Mathematical Science. He’s a little sad that he’d going to be going so far away from Hasetsu but more than anything, he’s glad that he will be getting away from them. He can’t keep pinning forever. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">But—but—</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">The resort had been super busy for the past weeks and Yuri had come down with a vague fever that day, so during his break, he’d made his way over to the back of the resort to Yuuri and Viktor’s house. He’d been planning on taking a nice long nap but what he’s not expecting, is to walk into an argument. They don’t hear the door open and he takes off his shoes and coat as usual and just when he’s about to call out a greeting—</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“I said NO!” Yuuri shouts.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He freezes in the hallway, for a moment not knowing what to make of it.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“We should tell him <em>now.</em>” Viktor is saying. “It’s not fair to him and he’s leaving—“</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“—No, <em>no. </em>I don’t want to have to deal with this.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Yuuri,” Viktor says, his voice horrified, “You like him! You lo—“</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“DON’T SAY THAT! <em>Don’t </em>say that word. Just stop okay? I don’t want him to know.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“I don’t understand, I thought—I thought we would—“</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“That we would what Viktor? Ask him to give us a chance? He’s a <em>child</em>.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“He’s about to turn eighteen.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Oh, so you’re the type to use that excuse, ‘Oh, he’s eighteen, old enough for me to bang.’”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">There’s a heavy silence. “That was low, even for you.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He hears Yuuri give a sob, “I never wanted any of this. I didn’t think having him here would change anything.” He hears his breath shudder, “I thought it would only ever be you! And I wouldn’t have to face the fact that <em>we’re </em>not normal.” </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Yuri blinks wondering what they’re talking about.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“But Yuri’s worth it,” He hears Viktor say, “You have to believe that.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">And suddenly—terribly, horribly, hideously—everything falls neatly into place. He feels faint.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Makkachin barks from the end of the hallway when he sees Yuri from the kitchen, Vicchan also start yapping in excitement and Potya gives a mewl. They’re in their crates and Yuri leans against the wall because he feels like his heart has just fallen out of his chest.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He sees how both Yuuri and Viktor poke their heads to see what their pets are making noise about. Yuri can’t even be satisfied with the way the blood runs from their faces.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Y-Yura,” Viktor starts, “How long have you been there?</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“How long have you known?”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri takes in a sharp breath and bites his lip but then he says, “I think we should sit down and talk.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“I don’t want to sit down.” Yuri says, something in him giving away to anger, “How long have you <em>known</em>?”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">A long silence overtakes them, but eventually, the Japanese man answers him. “Since the day you named Potya.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Yuri’s vision <em>genuinely </em>doubles. He feels blood rushing through his ears and his stomach churns nastily. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Yuri,” Victor pleads, coming close. “Let us explain.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“You—I told you about it—I talked to you both. I <em>trusted</em> you.” He says, in a harsh whisper. Yuuri takes in a sharp breath.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Yura,” He says, trying to defuse the situation, “You have to understand us, we were so confused—and you—you were so young—“</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Yuri laughs, a strange sound even to him, “Must be nice being up on that high horse.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Please—<em>please </em>just hear us out.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Viktor grabs his arm and his touch is like an electric shock that makes him violently recoil, “Don’t—Don’t—you fucking touch me—” He chokes out, “—Don’t <em>fucking touch me.</em>”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Because he feels so exposed, so stripped off his walls, that he feels like he might actually swing at him. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Yura<em>—“ </em>Yuuri starts.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“—DON’T SAY MY NAME! JUST <em>FUCKING STOP.” </em>He screams as he digs his nails into his arm. He shuts his eyes tight as if that would somehow protect him from them.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He presses his hands to his face, trying to stop his tears, “You—both of you sat there and listened to me rant about it and—and what? Was it amusing? Did you get off on it, is that it? Oh look at this kid crying about us—look at this kid—<em>hoping</em>—hahahahaha—so funny. So fucking funny!” Yuri hates that his voice is cracking and splintering. He hates that they know just how hurt and heartbroken he is. “You didn’t even have the decency to cut me off—instead you <em>pretended. </em>Why? because you felt sorry for me? Because you pitied this <em>stupid stupid </em>kid that you rejected without even knowing. Because it made you feel good having the moral high ground?”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“No, no,” Viktor says, “That’s not it.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“When did you do it?” He asks, through his tears. They don’t answer him and it just makes him angrier, “Six years ago? Right?” His mind is going a hundred miles per minute and he wishes he wasn’t so good at calculations, “And you married June? July? No.” They’re both looking at him in alarm, as he gets closer and closer to the truth, “Ah.” He says. “You did it when you were on your honeymoon.” </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Their silence is good enough answer.</span>
</p><p class="p7"><span class="s1">“HA! So just fuck me right?” And the tears that are slipping down his cheeks aren’t because he’s sad, instead it’s because the feeling inside him is so intense that it needs to release itself <em>somehow.</em> “Who cares about me so long as you’re living your happy ending. </span>Fuck—Fuck. I hate you. <em>I hate you</em>.” He covers his ears with trembling hands, clenches his jaw tight, and releases a coarse sound from his throat that doesn't even sound human to <em>him.</em>  He doesn’t know how to compartmentalize his emotions or how to control them because he’s still a fucking <em>child </em>that doesn’t know how to deal with his hurt.</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He wishes he could be collected and calm and they wouldn’t see how he’s falling apart. But he’s a damned teenager—and wasn't that the whole problem to begin with—a teenager that can’t keep his emotions contained under his skin. And how could he? He’s never been so <em>injured </em>by anyone this way. He’s never felt a rage so visceral, so violent, so <em>damaging. </em>His heart wants to rip itself out through his ribcage and he’s like an exposed live wire, charged and dangerous.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">If this is what love is—then Yuri doesn’t want it. If this is what a soulmate bond is then—it could go to hell for all he cared. And that—that makes him realize—that his side of the bond is still open—it has always been open and they <em>knew </em>all this time they <em>knew</em>—so Yuuri and Viktor must be feeling everything from his end. And that just makes things infinitely worse.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“I’ll get out of your fucking life so you can have your fairy tale ending without me here to—to ruin it for you. I—I’ll leave and you don’t ever have to worry about me—about me trying to come between the <em>perfect </em>life you’ve built.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He leans against the wall, trying to control his trembling body, trying to forcefully shut down. But he can’t do it, he can’t control anything. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Instead, he runs.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He pulls open the door forcefully and runs. Runs and runs and runs, without aim or direction. He doesn’t care that he has no coat or shoes on and that the last of the snow is barely beginning to melt. He doesn’t even care that he’s left his school bag behind where he has his house keys and his wallet. He doesn’t care where he’s even going. All he wants is to get away from them, as far away as he possibly can. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He ends up at the beach, the cold air making his lungs burn, and he pats his pockets to find his phone. He dials the number of one of the only two people that have ever loved him.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Mom,” He cries, when she picks up, “Mom. I—I—“</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“What’s wrong?” She asks, frantic. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“I—they—mom—it was them. It was always them—I—“</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Where are you?” </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“I don’t—I don’t know.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Yura,” She says, her voice steady, “Look up and tell me what you see.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He does, and through the blur of his tears, he sees the tea shop that they’ve visited once or twice. “Red Lion Tea shop.” </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“I’ll be right there. <em>Don’t move.</em>”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“I don’t want to be here.” Yuri says, wiping his nose, “Mom, I want to go home.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“I know, Yuri, I’m almost there.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“No—no. I want to go back to—to Russia. I don’t want to stay here. <em>Please.</em>”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Okay, Yura, we’ll go home.”</span>
</p><hr/><p class="p1">
  <strong> <span class="s1">PRESENT DAY</span> </strong>
</p><hr/><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">In the past four years, Yuuri has gained exactly forty-seven pounds. He’s been eating his feelings out a lot and Viktor gets upset at him because of it. And that only serves to make Yuuri eat <em>more. </em>His parents are really worried and Yuuri can’t bring himself to tell them why things have fallen apart.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He never even told them why Yuri had quit so suddenly. He’s still ashamed about it. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri is born with his soulmate mark and he’d been fascinated with it when he was younger. It was on his right hip and easy to hide. It had been a beautiful six-pronged ice crystal, intricately woven, and he’d known there was only one other person in the universe with the exact same pattern. Yuuri is a romantic, always had been since a young age, so of course, his mark had only made him daydream about the beautiful life he would someday have with his other half. He thought about the endless possibilities and all the hopes and dreams he would accomplish with this one person by his side.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Except he comes to realize that it’s not quite as simple as that. When he’s eight, on the first day of March, just as he’d been about to fall asleep, he felt a pinch on his hip and his eyes had snapped open because it had really <em>hurt.</em> He quickly turned on the light and had witnessed the last prong of another ice crystal ingrain itself into his skin. He remembers blinking rapidly, trying to keep his tears at bay, trying to make sense of the situation, and then realized that he had <em>two crystals</em>. One next to the other, identical, and it had made his heart sink.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1"><em>No,no,no,no! </em>He had thought frantically. It couldn’t be real, it just <em>couldn’t. </em>Having more than one soulmate mark was a disgrace, an anomaly, it meant that two people weren’t wholly made for each other, that they could never be <em>enough.</em> It was <em>unnatural. </em>A thing that one only heard about in horror stories because two people weren’t a perfect <em>pair</em> of soulmates. They were some bastardization of it, something awful and broken.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He does the only thing he thinks is right, he hides it, pretends it’s not there, he completely disregards its existence and almost grows to hate it. Whoever it is, it doesn’t matter. It will never matter because Yuuri will never love them. He <em>won’t</em>. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He doesn’t care or think about the <em>other </em>person. No, instead he steams in his own vitriol and thinks <em>I will not love them, I will not love them, ever. I only have one soulmate. One.</em></span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Besides, this person was <em>eight </em>years younger than him, there was no way Yuuri would ever—<em>could </em>ever—love a person that young. So he goes through his teenage years thinking along those lines and chooses to forget his other mark. He watches as Yuuko and Takeshi marry with burning jealously because they were definitely two sides of one coin. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He meets Viktor when he’s eighteen and <em>he’s</em> the one he’d been waiting for. He comes to Yu-Topia during the offseason and well, it’s almost pure coincidence Yuuri walks in on him with his shirt off. (Though really what he should call it is fate.) He has his marks below his left collar bone and they’re white against his skin and so beautiful. They’re identical to the ones Yuuri has but it’s different, seeing them on him.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Oh, it’s you,” Viktor had said in heavily accented Japanese when Yuuri frantically shows him his mark. He smiles so beautifully, so captivating that Yuuri <em>knew </em>he was the man he was meant to love. No one else.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Viktor stays with him for a year and it’s almost all Yuuri ever daydreamed about and more. He says almost because the other mark is still there, no matter how much both of them wish it away. They don’t waste time, they marry when Yuuri is nineteen and Viktor doesn’t oppose the idea of rejecting their other soulmate, “They’re probably eleven right now...that’s...disturbing.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">So they come to the agreement that its something that they would never about again and they would take it to their graves, Viktor tells him, “I don’t need anyone but you.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">The other mark doesn’t matter. It’s meaningless and worthless in their eyes because they would never accept anyone else in their life. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">That’s were Yuuri’s wrong again. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He can still recall to memory the first time he met Yuri with intricate detail.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He had been standing under the porch of a flower shop as he waited for the sudden downpour to pass when this kid had almost come barreling into him. He’d barely managed to skid to halt before he knocked Yuuri over.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“So-sorry,” He had said, his hair covering his face and eyes.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">For a moment, Yuuri had thought the kid was a delinquent because of his long blond hair.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“It’s no problem,” He’d muttered, stepping a little farther away from him.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">The boy had stood looking away from him and Yuuri had side-eyed him. He was wearing the Hasestsu High school uniform and it’s then that he noticed the little leopard charm he had on his school bag. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He couldn’t stop himself from saying, “That’s the Sochi Winter Olympics mascot!”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">The boy had then turned to him, as he brushed his wet hair away from his face, and Yuuri had laid eyes on the <em>most </em>beautiful green eyes he had ever seen. He had almost been struck into silence. He wasn’t a delinquent, he was a foreigner!</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">The kid had looked at him a little lost for a few seconds and Yuuri realized that he probably couldn’t understand Japanese very well so he had said in English, pointing, “Winter Olympics? The mascot?”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Oh, yeah,” The boy had answered, slowly, looking down at the charm, “I got it when I went to see the figure skating competitions.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“You <em>went</em>?”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Yeah, my grandfather took me.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri’s a little taken aback, because he hadn’t realized sooner, “You’re Russian!”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He nodded.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“What a coincidence!” The younger boy had shifted from one foot to another in unease and that’s when Yuuri noticed the job catalog book in his hand. Yuuri had raised an eyebrow, “You’re job hunting?”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">He nodded again and was now looking at Yuuri like he was the one to be wary of.</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“I’m hiring!” Something had possessed him to say, “I run Yu-Topia!”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“O-oh,” He’d stuttered, “The hot springs?”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Yeah! The one and only in all of Hasetsu, you should come by and see if you’d like to work with us.”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">The rain had turned into a drizzle and Yuuri had checked his watch and realized that he was running super late. “I have to go, but come by this Monday and you can check it out,” He steps out from under the shelter and had asked, “What’s your name?”</span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Yuri Plisetsky.” </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">“Okay! Yuri! Come by!” </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri had taken off with one last wave and when Yuri showed up to the resort it hadn’t felt wrong to hire him. It hadn’t felt wrong to invite him for dinner. It hadn’t felt wrong trying to get closer to him. </span>
</p><p class="p7">
  <span class="s1">But it had felt wrong when he felt Yuri’s side of the bond light up in happiness when he saw the cat they’d rescued. It felt like fate was playing a cruel joke on him and it had come to remind him that Viktor and he were not complete on their own. No matter how much they had tried to lie to themselves and keep him out of their lives, the Goddess had delivered him right to their doorstep. And she had shown them what they were missing and what they rejected and they had looked at the person they broke right in the eye and felt how his happiness gave away into anger and since that moment, Yuuri had never been the same again.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>sooo, i'm super excited to announce that i will be translating a Viktor/Yuri fanfic that i think deserves much more love. it's 70K+ of sweet angst and urgghhh.<br/>be on the look out if you like things like that. lolol.<br/>Sorry if this seems a little rushed.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Part III—Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>well, hello, hi. how are ya? it's been a while.<br/>months actually. yikes. I'm sorry for leaving you guys hanging, lolol. i started translating a Victurio fic and that's taken up most of my time. along with some other things. anyway, I'm sure I'll bore you to tears with my excuses so i will stop there. lolol.</p><p>though tbh, i felt like i'd been avoiding finishing this bc i dug myself into a hole that i didn't quite know how to get myself out of. i can only hope that what i envisioned turns out well.</p><p>anyway, enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p class="p1">
  <em> <strong>And it's just my soul responding</strong> </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> <strong>To the heavy heart I'm holding</strong> </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> <strong>It's just my soul responding</strong> </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> <strong>To the love you took from me</strong> </em>
</p><p class="p1"><strong>—</strong> <em>Amber Run</em></p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <strong>PRESENT TIME</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The day Yuri comes back, it rains in the early morning. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The storm starts at around three AM and it rains and rains and rains. Yuuri isn’t the one opening the onsen that day, so after his alarm rings, he lays in bed until seven, listening to the rain fall on the roof and the thunder sounding in the distance. He gets up eventually, taking in the pouring gray skies, and sighs. Another <em>long</em> day. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He moves around his home sluggishly, pulling on some clean clothes and making his way to the kitchen to make coffee. It’s dark, but he doesn’t turn on the light. Makkachin and Potya are curled up on the couch with their eyes closed and Yuuri doesn’t want to disturb them. Viktor is long gone, probably already at their office overlooking the budget reports for the end of the month. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When his coffee is done, Yuuri pours it in a cup and goes to sit at the dinner table. He pulls out his phone and as he usually does, checks Yuri’s Instagram to see if he’s posted any updates. He hasn’t and Yuuri is sorely disappointed about it, as he has been for the past seven months. He wonders what’s happened but tries to not think too deeply about it, there have been times when he’s worried to the point of throwing up. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He clicks his phone off and sips his coffee in silence, the rain letting up, and now there's only a drizzle, but the clouds are still dark and it seems as though it would rain all day today. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">At around ten, he takes an umbrella and makes his way to the onsen. He’s in no hurry, it’s June and for the next two weeks, they only have about five reservations scheduled. Today, a party of three will arrive in the afternoon, and they’re going to be the only guest for the remainder of the week. So he’s not worried about getting to work. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He has breakfast with his mom, in the kitchen, though it’s more of a lunch since it’s almost eleven by the time he sits down with her. She’s been complaining about joint pain lately and he’s been trying to convince her to work fewer hours, but she always waves him away. Today, too, when he brings up the subject she just shakes her head, “Not yet.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“But mom—“ He begins before she cuts him off.<br/>
“I’m fine, I can still work.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s useless to argue with her, so he says nothing more, today. He’ll bring the topic again tomorrow.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">At twelve, Yuuri takes over the front counter as Viktor goes home to have lunch, they exchange civil pleasantries but other than that, they don’t have anything to talk about. It’s weird sometimes. He loved him, he still did, but they had grown apart in the past years, and it seemed the distance between them was only growing bigger and bigger. He wished he had the courage to bridge the gap but he didn’t.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">After Viktor leaves, Yuuri spends his time at the counter flipping over old magazines in boredom. He doesn’t know how much time passes but eventually, a woman’s voice comes.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Hello,” She says, in English, “I have a reservation.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri shuts the magazine closed immediately, hot shame flooding him for not realizing that someone had come in, “W-welcome,” He says, looking up, “What’s the…” He trails off, because before him stands a <em>very </em>familiar person. He gapes and she smiles politely.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It’s under Lilia Baranovskaya, I—“<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Mila,” Yuuri interrupts and he watches her brows pull together in confusion.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Uhh, yeah. How did you know?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I watch you. On—on Youtube.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh my gosh,” She says, bringing her hands to cover her grin, “<em>Really? </em>I didn’t think—oh man, I didn’t think anyone here would.” She looks happy.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yes,” He says, “You guys—“ He clears his throat, “—It’s nice to see your videos.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Thank you!” Mila says sincerely, and then she mumbles to herself, “I can’t wait to tell the guys!”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Right,” Yuuri says, trying to keep his heart from escaping, he couldn’t be here, right? He hadn’t traveled in seven months, so he couldn’t be here. He stops. Swallows thickly and bitterly thinks, <em>of course, he wouldn’t be here. </em>He forces himself to give her a polite smile, “So about your reservation,” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh, right well—“ As she begins talking, Yuuri notices that the front door of the onsen is opening again and his entire body freezes. Mila continues saying something, but Yuuri can’t hear her. Two men enter the lobby and—</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Everything stops. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His gray world slows, it stills. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Everything. Everything. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It stops, it quiets. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>There you are.</em> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He emits light, everything is lit up by him and for the first time in years, Yuuri sees something other grayness. In his chest, his heart is being squeezed so hard, and so painfully, he thinks it will burst. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“—se me. Excuse me.” Mila says, her voice snaps him back to reality, and he fumbles with a reply. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“So-sorry, I—I—“ Yuuri flickers his gaze from her to Yuri and it’s this jittery behavior that catches Yuri’s attention. When their eyes meet, Yuuri feels the world breakaway and reconstruct in a matter of milliseconds. He feels himself gaping, and he knows—<em>knows </em>that he’s making a complete fool of himself. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri doesn’t do anything, doesn’t smile, doesn’t look disgusted or angry, or <em>anything. </em>He looks at Yuuri like a stranger. He comes to stand beside Mila and he says, his voice leveled and steady, “We have a reservation.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Y-yes. Right,” Yuuri frets, his hands shaking, as he moves to the computer to pull up their information. His stomach is churning in he feels like every nerve in his body is has been lit up by lightning. He doesn’t know how he manages it, but he somehow does what he’s supposed to do, he leads them to their room, slides the door open for them, and hands them their key. He does all the things that are expected of him, as if on autopilot.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Ri-right, I’ll leave you to make yourselves at home,” He says, stepping back, “Someone will come to get you when dinner’s ready.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He’s already in the hallway, ready to run when Yuri pokes his head out of the room.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Katsudon,” He says.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And Yuuri turns and through a choke says, “Yes?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri looks at him for a few moments and then says, “For dinner. Katsudon.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh-oh! Yes, I—I’ll—Yes. I will let them know. I—“ He clicks his mouth shut. He doesn’t know what will come out.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri still looks at him, and though he doesn’t smile, his brow quirks in what Yuuri remembers was amusement, he says, “I’ll see you around.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri nods, “Yes, yes.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri gives him a dismissing flick of his hand and goes back into the room. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And he, well, he runs back down to the reception, going straight to the kitchen to let his mom know that she has to make the best Katsudon she’s ever done in her life.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Outside, the clouds have begun to disperse, and the sun shines through, lighting up Hasetsu in a warm glow.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <strong>FOUR YEARS AGO</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">What is a soulmate? Yuri wonders about this question on multiple occasions after what happened.</p><p class="p1">He doesn’t feel any more empty than he did before, his <em>toska </em>is the same. But Yuri is angry. The type of angry that makes him want to punch through a wall until his fists are bloody, the type of anger that makes him want to get into a fistfight, the type that cannot release itself from his pores because it’s lodged in his bones.</p><p class="p1">Returning to Russia doesn’t do much for Yuri’s state of mind.</p><p class="p1">After that horrendous night, his mother had immediately started the moving process, and that last month in Japan he didn’t even bother going to school. Minami had called a hundred and one times until he got fed up and showed up at Yuri’s doorstep wondering where the hell he had disappeared off to. Yuri’s glad his mom had been home at the time and she’d turned him away. He didn’t think he would have found the words to explain what had happened.</p><p class="p1">Those days of blinding wrath seem so far away now, but sometimes when he stops and thinks, the hate rises from somewhere deep inside his core, like a beast trying to claw out of his skin. It always rises at the most unexpected moments. He could be riding the train or staring off into the distance and he’d remember <em>them </em>and he had to bite down on his cheek to keep himself in the present moment. </p><p class="p1">Yuri had gone through five vials of MA-E in the span of four weeks—more than he’d taken in two<em> years</em>—so the sleeping agent <em>really </em>fucked him up. Yuri doesn’t remember much from that time, it’s all a messy blur of being half awake and half asleep punctuated by periods of rage that made him feel like he had a demon caught in his chest. Every time he felt himself beginning to ‘wake up’ he’d down a vial of the medicine and then fall right back down to that state of drowsiness that left him feeling <em>nothing. </em></p><p class="p1">When Yuri’s mind finally clears he’s back home and his grandfather looks at him a little sadly but doesn’t say anything otherwise.</p><p class="p1">The first few weeks back are painfully boring and it’s his mother that suggests he go help Yakov at the gym. He goes reluctantly because he fucking hates when Yakov starts talking about bygone days and ‘subtly’ tries to convince Yuri to change his mind about boxing.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> He goes anyway because he needs something to do. It's boring but e</span>ventually, though, he meets this dude there that asks him to help him train for a no holds barred boxing competition and he agrees to help him only because it gives him an opportunity to get into a fistfight without the police getting involved.</p><p class="p1">He spits blood out of his mouth every time afterward and Yakov only shakes his head, “You’ve gotten sloppy.”</p><p class="p1">“Fuck you,” He grumbles, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s not like I got into fights regularly in Japan.”</p><p class="p1">Yakov shrugs, “You’re still young. You could still make it if you ever decide—“</p><p class="p1">“Oh, fuck off!” Yuri says, annoyed, “I’m not my mother.”</p><p class="p1">“I didn’t say you were.”</p><p class="p1">They leave it at that. For that day anyway.</p><p class="p1">When Yuri’s mother was nineteen, she won gold for the lightweight division at the AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships. In the following years, she kept the title for four years. Then she got pregnant, had to stop, came back the following year to win silver, after that, she won gold on two more occasions and retired when Yuri’s marks turned black.</p><p class="p1">She had been a fucking beast and when Yuri used to see her fights on TV with his grandfather he couldn’t help but be left in absolute awe at her prowess. Yuri had once seen her cleanly knock out an opponent half a head taller than her.She’s the one who taught him how to make a proper fist, how to throw a punch, how to defend himself, and how to fight.</p><p class="p1"><em>No matter how much that person deserves it, </em>She had said, <em>I promise you that if you swing your fists in anger, you will regret it. </em></p><p class="p1">He comes to realize after a while, that it wouldn’t do him any good to immediately go to university. He wasn’t focused enough, and honestly, sitting in a classroom was the <em>last</em> thing he wanted to do. So he talks it over with his mother and decides to do something absolutely ludicrous and backpack across Europe for the rest of the year. His mother hadn’t really been on board with the idea but Yuri promised to call her everyday and she reluctantly conceded. But Yuri is sure that she understood the feeling of wanting to <em>get away</em>. That suffering, burning desire to escape, for change, for freedom, for <em>something </em>other than the feeling of being devoured by his own consciousness and anger. Recklessness seemed to be the only way to tame the demon that had taken hold of him. He had no desire to be sensible or reasonable.</p><p class="p1">He worked all through high school so he had money saved up, so he buys a one-way ticket to Switzerland and begins his trip from there. He meets Mila by pure chance when he’s on a train bound to the Swiss Alps. She had latched onto him when she realized that he was also Russian and she was new to the whole backpacking thing too so they stumble through learning together.</p><p class="p1">At the end of their hike, they decided to stay in one of the towns before taking off to Austria. It had been in that little town that they had run into some Americans jumping off a bridge. The bridge they were jumping off was a good fifteen meters high and they leaped off the edge like it was nothing. Mila and he had just watched for a long while with sick fascination.</p><p class="p1">Eventually, one of the Americans had noticed them looking and dared Yuri to jump for 200 USD. He’d thought it over for about five seconds before he had made up his mind. Yuri had shrugged and said, “I got nothing to lose.”</p><p class="p1">“Your <em>life</em> maybe?” Mila had incredulously asked when she saw him taking off his backpack.</p><p class="p1">“Eh, I could care less.”</p><p class="p1">After Yuri had taken off his shoes and climbed the ledge, he had stood looking down at the fifteen-meter drop and his vision had become a little blurred. But for the first time in months, he hears his heartbeat in his ears—he feels something other than boredom and dissatisfaction. He had taken in a deep breath to steady himself and gather his courage but it hadn’t worked. So instead, he did it without thinking.</p><p class="p1">He just...jumped.</p><p class="p1">And those seconds that he’s falling he feels <em>alive. </em></p><p class="p1">The mix of fear and adrenaline had been like a shock to his system and since that moment, he chases after it. He learns how to do tricks, jumps more bridges, taller ones, searches for waterfalls to dive from, and its always in those few split seconds in the air that he feels the most alive. Everything else seemed to pale in comparison. The rage seems to simmer, it seems to stop oozing out of his pores, and instead, it stays under his skin.</p><p class="p1">Mila had repeatedly complained that she had gotten stuck with an idiot but she doesn’t leave him. They had met Otabek in Spain when Yuri had flopped from a twenty-meter height when he under-rotated double backflip and he landed on his face and his nose wouldn’t stop bleeding. Mila had been trying to find a place for them to stay the night when Otabek had run into her—like literally <em>run </em>into her with a bike and they’d had this weird apology-flirting session <em>thing </em>as Yuri had looked on at them unimpressed as he stood there <em>bleeding out. </em>Eventually, though Otabek had realized Yuri’s patience was running out and showed them the cheap hostel he was staying at.</p><p class="p1">They had gotten to talking and eventually decided to form a ragtag group that traveled through Europe backpacking and hiking and in between all that they looked for bridges and waterfalls to dive off. Mila had even uploaded one of his twenty five meter jumps and posted it on Instagram and then Sportscenter reposted it to their page and from there, things had just…taken off. In a way.</p><p class="p1">The whole Youtube thing had been Mila’s idea. Yuri hadn’t really been dying of excitement about it but it sounded like fun. Mila would film, Otabek would provide the music, and Yuri would edit. They had a lot of content to share from their travels so they band together to buy a nice camera since they’re all pretty dirt poor at the time. (Bekka’s parents had banned him from his fortune for a year and he was trying to ‘regain his honor.’ They had a running joke about it.)</p><p class="p1">When they start their channel, it’s a mixture of scenic views and vlogs that catalog their travels. They gain a couple of hundred followers after their first few videos and as they post more content, their subscriber count only seems to be going up and up. Being a ‘Youtuber’ was never a thing that he ever saw himself doing, but with Mila and Otabek at his side, he doesn’t care about looking like an idiot if this all fails.</p><p class="p1">Mila and Otabek become his closest confidants all too easy, it’s liberating—in a way—that he knows who his soulmates are now and he doesn’t have to wonder or hesitate to get close to anyone anymore. He knows that no one would ever hurt him—not like they had.</p><p class="p1">When they hike Picos de Europa in Spain they get caught in a terrible lightning storm in the middle of the trail. And who knows, maybe it’s them huddled together in a tent with the world raging outside that makes their walls come down and they start talking about why they’re hiking in the first place. He learns that Mila’s soulmate mark is on her ankle, not white, not black, just faintly outlined—a sign of a deceased soulmate.</p><p class="p1">“I was fifteen when it happened,” She tells them, her voice quiet. “I’m just trying to…I don’t know, move on? Or…something. I never even met them.”</p><p class="p1">Otabek looks between them and after some deliberation reveals, "My soulmate committed suicide last year.”</p><p class="p1">Yuri and Mila stare at him, shocked, and not knowing what to say. Yuri looks from Otabek to Mila—two people like him and unlike him at the same time and he feels almost—safe. So he tells them about his blacked-out marks.</p><p class="p1">“Wow,” Otabek says drily, “It’s almost as if we’re cursed.”</p><p class="p1">Mila started to laugh, just a giggle at first and then a chortle that made both Yuri and Otabek crack a smile, and pretty soon they were all laughing at their misfortune. They were a sad bunch but their tragedies had brought them together—so who knows. Maybe there’s something to be said about fate.</p><p class="p1">Eventually, they run into JJ in Portugal and he introduces Yuri and Otabek to parachuting and it left Yuri reeling from just how amazing it is. Parachuting gave him the ability to seek higher heights—a higher thrill, a higher adrenaline high—and still be safe about it. Their hobbies seem to be getting more and more expensive as the months go by, however, so they set up a Patreon. Surprisingly enough, their subscribers react well to it and they pledge money to them and it only makes what they're doing more official. They buy new equipment, shoot better videos, and they gain more popularity. The whole thing seems so unreal to him. (He also does his best to ignore the two users from Japan that each donates 300 USD every month. It had to be a coincidence, it can’t be who he thinks they are—he wants to stop thinking about <em>them</em>.)</p><p class="p1">Between all this and all the traveling he’s been doing, he kisses a lot of people. Though both his soulmates were males, Yuri discovers that he didn’t mind girls at all. Like <em>at all.</em> Their lips were warm and they smelled good and they were generally soft and he finds that he likes that. There had been a couple of guys—and that weird thing with JJ that never progresses further than wandering hands and making out in dark corners until Yuri realized that he really didn’t like him<em> enough</em>—but he very quickly realizes that all he did was compare them to the people from his past. So he stopped trying to kiss guys after he discovers the pattern.</p><p class="p1">Girls were safe though. They didn’t remind him at all of the men he had so desperately fallen in love with so he felt the sting ease when he was with them but the emptiness was something they couldn’t fill.</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <strong>PRESENT DAY</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Viktor cannot believe it. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri is here. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri has come <em>back. </em></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s like he’s dreaming awake, he never expected to see him again. Even when the dust had settled, he had made peace and accepted the fact that he might never see Yuri again, not in person, not in the flesh, not <em>here </em>where it all started and fell apart. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yet even though he’s dying to hear the sound of his voice, he doesn’t know how to approach him. Yuri has been at the onsen for two days now and Viktor cannot find it in himself to speak to him. What would he say? What could he do? What would be appropriate? </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He quietly observes him from far way instead, usually noticing him out of the corner of his eye when he’s in the middle of work. He’s seen him in the gardens as he arguing with his friends about one thing or the other. And in the kitchens when he talks to Hiroko and Mari, telling them about all his adventures since he left, and when he’s playing Shogi with Toshiya in the engawa. It seems to Viktor, that Yuri is now everywhere he looks and he cannot escape him. And he <em>doesn’t </em>want to escape him, it’s actually the opposite, but he can’t figure out a way to get closer. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri had traded places with Mao and he’s been the one attending them for the past few days but it doesn’t seem like he’s making any progress either. If anything, he looks more distressed than ever, always tittering from one place to the other making sure that there’s not a hair out of place in their room. But it seems that Yuri’s casual coolness is not what he was expecting. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I want him to get angry at me,” Yuuri had admitted last night, “I want him to tell me how awful and horrible I am. I want him to express <em>something </em>other than politeness.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Viktor had been silent at that because he understands. It would be better, for both of them, if Yuri would just spit on their faces rather than act as if nothing happened. It’s disturbing to think that way, but they can’t help it, can’t stop longing for his love, for his hate, for his presence. They never stopped. From the moment Yuri run out of the house, all those years ago, they had longed and ached and felt homesick. Their home wasn’t a home anymore. Not without him.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When Viktor closed his eyes he could almost see his bonds. The one for Yuuri was still there, but weaker, thinner, looking ready to snap at any moment. The one for Yuri was this white-hot longing that went no further than a meter from himself. Completely cut off and in tatters and it <em>hurt. </em>Like a wound that never closes, never heals, on that doesn’t let him forget that its there.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri has grown taller, his hair longer, and his shoulders broader. He looks like the beautiful man he’d always been meant to be. And Viktor can’t help but wonder what it would have been like, if Yuuri and he had never done what they did, he wonders how their love story would have played out if they had just waited for him. That’s all they had to do. Wait for him to mature, wait for him to make the decision to be with them, but they had been scared. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They had no right to approach him now, no right to even think he should forgive them, and yet, hope cannot help but rise in him. Why had Yuri come back? For what purpose had he come here, to Hasetsu in specific, there were other, much more beautiful places in Japan, and yet he’d come here. Here, where he’d run away from. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Viktor thinks about it over and over but he cannot reach a conclusion that satisfies him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri and his friends have breakfast at the onsen before leaving for the day and hiking the trails around Hasetsu. They come back at around four, take baths, and then come down to a private room to have dinner at around seven. Then they each do their own thing before finally going to bed at ten. They’ve been filming a lot too, about the culture of the town and its sweetshops and restaurants.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri is leaving in three days and Viktor refuses to keep lurking behind his peripheral vision. It might be a bit underhanded of him but he enlists the help of the beings he knows Yuri won’t turn away from. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So after dinner, he goes home and gathers Potya into his arms and leashes Makkachin and then makes his way back to the onsen.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">To Viktor’s luck, Yuri is sitting on one of the benches in the gardens, scrolling through his phone. He pauses, taking him in from far away again, and wonders, idly, if this is just a horrible idea. Potya gets impatient though and begins squirming in his arms, meowing pitifully. Yuri looks up at the noise and for a moment just stares at Viktor like he doesn’t know him, his gaze not giving anything away, but when he notices the furry animals Viktor has with him and his lips tilt up. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The silver-haired man takes this as permission to get closer and when he does, Makkachin, whose sight isn’t what it used to be, finally recognizes Yuri when she catches his scent. She begins to do a full-body wiggle in a desperate attempt to get closer to Yuri. Viktor lets her go and she doesn’t waste time jumping into Yuri’s arms. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Hello!” Yuri says, petting her and smiling, “I’ve missed you!” He continues cooing at her and Makkachin yips, licking his arms and cheeks. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Hi,” Viktor says, finally, clearing his throat before continuing, “It’s—it’s been a long time.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri nods, not meeting his eyes still, “Yeah.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I thought—that you might want to see them.” Viktor continues, motioning to Potya who looks as though she’s just about had it being in his arms,“So I—I brought them.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri looks at her, and reaches for her, and Viktor picks up the faint smell of his shampoo and the closeness almost makes his legs give out under him. When Yuri’s hands graze his forearms, it feels like he’s been doused in cold water, and he’s suddenly aware of everything, down to the number of lashes in Yuri’s eyes. He swallows thickly as Yuri takes Potya from him and the cat just settles into his arms as if she were <em>finally </em>home. He supposes it’s actually true. Yuri had always been Potya’s unofficial but <em>official </em>owner. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Both Makkachin and Potya seem to fall back into easy familiarity with Yuri because they stay close to him and Viktor can’t help but smile at the sight.But after a moment Yuri asks, “Where’s Vicchan?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh,” Viktor responds, his smile turning a little sad, “Vicchan died about a month after…” <em>You left, </em>the last words go unsaid, but they both know to what Viktor is referring to.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I see,” Yuri murmurs, scratching the back of Potya’s neck, “I’m sorry to hear that.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yuuri—“ Viktor begins, before stopping and beginning again, he’s <em>really</em> pushing it, “—Yuuri has a shrine for him at the house. If you—if you ever want to stop by. You’re—you’re always welcome.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri looks at him for a moment that feels like an eternity but in the end, just turns away to sit back on the bench and doesn’t say anything. Makkachin rests her head on Yuri’s lap and he pets her ears. The silence that overtakes them is heavy but Viktor would like to think it’s not uncomfortable. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Where are you going after here?” Viktor asks.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Hokkaido. For two weeks,” Yuri surprisingly answers. “Then back to Russia.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Ahh,” Viktor nods, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. So he’s leaving again. It shouldn’t be as shocking as it is but Viktor’s heart still pumps painfully in his chest. Silence overtakes them again and Viktor looks around the garden trying to distract himself. He feels stupid, just standing there as Yuri sits and pets the animals, Yuri must feel uncomfortable too and Viktor wonders if maybe it would be best if he just went somewhere else and leave Yuri to have his reunion with Makkaching and Potya in peace. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Just sit down,” Yuri says, exasperated, “I can hear you think.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Viktor lets out an awkward laugh, not used to being so out of his element. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Sorry,” he says as he takes a seat beside him and once again silence overtakes them. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">After a while, however, Yuri asks, “For what?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Viktor says, “For making you uncomfortable.” He pauses and thinks, <em>no that’s not it. </em>“For everything, too.” And it’s as though a dam breaks, it’s not the right time or place and honestly, it never will be, but that doesn’t matter. “And for hurting you. You didn’t deserve it. We messed up. You don’t have to forgive us. But I’m sorry. I am.” <em>I miss you, </em>he doesn’t say, <em>I love you and probably always will, </em>remains in his heart, because it’s not about him. It’s about Yuri and Viktor’s feelings shouldn’t influence his decision.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">For the next hour, they just sit at the bench and Yuri pets Makkachin and Potya. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri doesn’t respond to his apology and that’s fine, Viktor thinks.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There’s nothing more to say. </span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>THREE YEARS AGO</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">In March, JJ invites them to Canada and they take advantage of traveling to the North American continent because they make plans to hike parts of the Pacific Crest Trail once Spring hits.</p><p class="p1">In the meantime, they spend their time in JJ’s British Columbia home and it’s amazing how rich the guy is that they can snowboard in his backyard. (Speaking of being rich, Otabek had told his parents that he wasn’t taking over the family business for the next three years—Yuri wishes he could have seen their faces.)</p><p class="p1">Eventually, they have to travel south for their journey and that’s when his fate starts to shift in a direction that he wasn’t expecting. He—well, he <em>meets </em>someone.</p><p class="p1">Yuri meets Marie when Mila, Otabek, and he are traveling in Oregon hunting for waterfalls. She’s the same age as him and funny and she is so <em>pretty </em>in his eyes. Her six-pronged ice crystal is on the inside of her wrist and like his own, an obsidian black. She does not hide it or shy away from people’s judgmental stares. They meet by pure chance and the attraction he feels for her doesn’t bring up unwelcome memories or make him feel hollow.</p><p class="p1">She only has a year left as a ‘free woman’ she tells them because she was going to take priestess vows and she would live the rest of her life in a temple dedicated to the Goddess. It had sounded all very fanatical to Yuri at first and he thought she was going to be some devout, raging disciple but he learns that she’s actually pretty chill and so in touch with herself that he’s jealous of it. Sometimes he doubted they were the same age.</p><p class="p1">He doesn't know who invites her to travel with them—but he’s pretty sure it’s Otabek once he realizes how starry-eyed and downright smitten Yuri is—but she joins their little expedition for a few months. He quickly realizes that what he feels for her is more than just physical attraction. They just seem to <em>click </em>with each other. Her humor is often dark and she once made Yuri laugh so hard he felt acid on the back of his mouth and tears had streamed out his eyes.</p><p class="p1">She has the most expressive brown eyes that remind him of hot chocolate on a cold winter day and when the sun hits them just right they remind him of honey cakes. She teaches him a lot about himself and she’s the first person Yuri is physically intimate with. She sees all of him—<em>everything</em>, even the charred marks on the back of his neck and she seems to bring him back to life.</p><p class="p1">He’s in love with the way she moves and the way her face looks blissed out in pleasure. He loves her taste and the soul that resides inside the body he worships late at night. Time doesn’t seem to obey any rules when he’s with her. Sometimes it seems as though a day is a minute when they’re having fun and laughing. Other times, when she’ll look at him and smile softly, and it feels as though the universe itself has halted and he’s going to stay suspended at that moment forever, and he thinks, this is what love is <em>supposed</em> to feel like.</p><p class="p1">But she is not someone he can keep. She doesn’t <em>want</em> to be kept.</p><p class="p1">“My soulmate was a piece of shit, you know,” She tells him as she traces her soul mark absentmindedly, “She was…such a <em>bitch.</em>”</p><p class="p1">Yuri raises an eyebrow because she doesn’t seem angry but her tone of voice makes it seem as though she hated her.</p><p class="p1">“I do,” Marie says, “Hate her.”</p><p class="p1">Yuri cringes, “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”</p><p class="p1">She laughs, and shakes her head, and then continues with her smile fading, “She hated me because the color of my skin and I thought I could make her love me regardless. I stayed with her because I thought—somehow—somehow she <em>has</em> to love me....eventually. After all the universe <em>made </em>us for each other. For a long time, I thought she did love me. But she hated the people that looked like me—and she would always make these subtlety insulting comments.”</p><p class="p1">Yuri hugs her closer, drawing circles in her skin with his thumb, “I started to realize that she was only with me because of the things I could offer her. And I suffered because of her. I started to feel subhuman and like I was somehow—I don’t know—not…enough.” Marie’s gaze is far away, looking at something beyond Yuri’s horizon, “I hated the way she made me hate myself. When I rejected her I was so angry and so hurt and upset. I left her and never looked back.”</p><p class="p1">She sighs deeply, inhaling slowly, “But eventually....eventually my anger faded away and my hurt healed but at the end of the day, I still <em>hated</em> her. I wasn’t angry anymore but I realized that I would never be able to be with her. And it was fine, you know. I didn’t have to forgive her and I didn’t have to carry around the heaviness in my heart.” She laughs, a sound so relieved and freed that Yuri wanted so much to feel that way, too. “What I’m trying to say with this sob story is that it’s possible to not be angry anymore but still hate someone. So if you ever stop being angry and don’t hate them...you should go back.”</p><p class="p1">They leave the conversation at that and though Yuri knows at the end of the line there’s nothing he gives himself wholly to her and she cradles his heart so tenderly in her hands that he can honestly say he’s <em>in</em> love her. It doesn’t even matter that they’re not soulmates, because when she’s with him, she chases away all the heartache that he feels. He loves the sound of her laughter and her dimples and more than anything, he loves the way she loves him.</p><p class="p1">They never say the words though.</p><p class="p1">There’s an unspoken agreement that they have reached, he knows that he cannot stay with her, even though he would—if the many impossibilities weren’t there—but more than that, she’s set in her decision to pursue her dreams, and Yuri would never stand in her way. He loves her that much. (And she sees something in him that he’s not even ready to admit himself. She has mellowed out his anger at them and that can mean many, many things and she’s not willing to go through the heartbreak as he figures himself out.)</p><p class="p1">Marie gives him one last kiss at the airport when they part for good. She kisses him so intensely it seems to him that she’s searing the memory of her lips into his very being. He kisses her back just as intently. Her hands tremble when she lets him go and she looks up at him with tears in her eyes.</p><p class="p1">She pulls away from him and with one last smile, she turns and walks towards the gate. Yuri watches her go and for a moment she stops and Yuri hopes—Marie turns around and her eyes immediately find his. She opens her mouth, blinks, and then swallows whatever words she’s going to say. She waves slowly, and then she turns and disappears from his sight.</p><p class="p1">Yuri isn’t himself for many weeks after, but he’s older now and is able to deal with his heartbreak better. He doesn’t regret Marie. He will never regret her because he <em>chose </em>her. She was something <em>he </em>wanted for himself. The universe didn’t signal her as someone he needed but he knew that he did. After her, he felt alive even when he wasn’t jumping off cliffs, instead, his heart is a steady rhythm in his chest.</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <strong>TWO YEARS AGO</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Following the year after Marie, Yuri travels more than ever. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He’d sat down and thought about it, but he wasn’t ready for this adventure to end just yet. He didn’t want to go back to St. Petersburg to mundane university life, not yet. There was still so much to see, so much to explore, so much out there that his eyes hadn’t seen. Mila and Otabek seem to share the same thoughts, so they decide to each go back home for a while but come April they would set off into new adventures again. They visit Australia and New Zealand and the memories he creates there are some of his favorites. He feels somewhat liberated, he’s no longer looking for love or for flings, since his heart began beating again all he wants to do is <em>live. </em>Because he can. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">From August to September they were head to southeast Asia. They backpack from Vietnam to Cambodia to Thailand and down to Malaysia. They reach Singapore at the beginning of October and Yuri feels lighter. Like not even the weight of his own body could hold him down.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">In November, Otabek and Mila get married and as he watches them look into each other's eyes like the rest of the world didn't exist he wonders again about what Marie had said. </span> <span class="s1">When he thinks about his soul mates, he doesn’t feel bile rising up the back of his throat any more. The anger doesn’t surface, doesn’t make him feel like it’s going to tear out of his bones. It’s an improvement but he wonders if it’s just because the pain has eased and not because he’s forgotten about it. He doesn't know if forgiveness is a thing he's capable of. </span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When December comes around, they go back to Russia and head to Kamchatka for a few weeks. It’s a frozen tundra, but Yuri is a born Slav through and through and he loves the cold climate. The hot springs and the snowboarding are an added perk. He goes back home for the holidays and the intense feeling of wanting to escape has slowly disappeared from inside him.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <strong>SEVEN MONTHS AGO</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">Yuri’s in Hawaii when his mother calls him, she sounds frantic and the only words that ring in his ears on the flight back to Russia are ‘grandfather’ and ‘stroke.’ He bites his thumbnail until it bleeds but even then he cannot stop the anxiety and fear he feels. When he arrives at the hospital, his grandfather has been stabilized but Yuri feels so on edge that his legs give out under him when he sees him laying on the bed with his eyes closed. He cries.</p><p class="p1">And cries, and cries.</p><p class="p1">He's told that his grandfather will make a full recovery but he needs bed rest but <span class="s1">his dedushka is a stubborn, stubborn man, and taking care of him is like using bouncing balls to break down a brick wall. Near<em> impossible</em>. He doesn’t like being in bed, even when the nurses explicitly say that he’s in no position to be wandering the hospital halls. </span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“<em>Papa,</em>” His mother will hiss when he’s complaining about the food or about how he needs to go home already. “You are worse than a <em>child</em>.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It only makes the old man much restless, “I’m fine already,” He says, “I need to go home! I can't stand doing nothing!”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His mother only rubs her temples, trying to dispel her headaches. Yuri thinks its funny, up until it’s <em>his </em>turn to stay with him during the night. He lays on the uncomfortable couch in the room, shifting one way and then another to try and get comfortable, but nothing he does seems to help. It’s a good thing though because he can’t fall asleep completely, his mother had warned him that his grandfather tended to pull at his IV when no one was paying attention. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So Yuri is half awake when he hears the quiet shuffling of bedsheets and he opens his eyes to the sight of his grandfather trying to get up from his bed.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Deduska, <em>no</em>.” He says standing hastily standing up.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Come now, Yurochka,” He tells him as Yuri wrestles with him to keep him in bed, “Let an old man stretch his legs.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No, stop,” Yuri says, grabbing his hands to keep them when he can see them, “You aren’t allowed to leave the bed yet.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’m perfectly healthy!” He exclaims. “Those doctors don’t know anything!”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I think they know a thing or two,” Yuri mutters under his breath.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Nothing. Nothing. Just go back to sleep.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yurochka if I stay another second in this bed I will lose my mind.” He says, finally letting himself be maneuvered, “Please let me get up.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri looks down at him with sympathy and sighs in defeat. “Your daughter is going to kill me but fine. Wait here, <em>don’t </em>move.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri leaves the room with one last look at his grandfather and goes in search of a wheelchair. The hospital is quiet, since it’s the middle of the night, and the halls are devoid of occupants. He finds the nurses station and has to almost beg the night nurse to please let him borrow one. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Please,” Yuri begs. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The nurse, Olga, shakes her head in amusement, “Old men are always the most difficult patients,” She says, “But fine, but only if you promise to not leave the wing.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri sighs in relief, “I won’t. I promise. I’ll just take him around the hallway a few times.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When his grandfather is situated in the chair, Yuri wheels him out of the room, and as he had promised only wheels him around the hallway. The older man seems quite pleased with the arrangement so they walk quietly around, round and round until Yuri loses track of time. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“So,” His grandfather says, breaking the serene silence, “How have your travels been?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“They’ve been <em>awesome,</em>” Yuri answers, “I haven't shown you the pictures from Hawaii yet. I think you’d really like them. It’s beautiful.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Mmm,” The older man hums, “I’m sure I will.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They lapse into another silence but then his grandfather breaks it again, “Will you tell me now?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Tell you what?” Yuri asks, truly confused.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What happened in Japan?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri comes to a full stop and his grandfather turns to look at him, his eyes kind, “I think it’s time you told me, don’t you think?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“W-well,” Yuri begins, trying to make up some type of excuse, “I mean—it’s a boring—and long story.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Well, aren’t you glad that I have both time and patience to listen to you now?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri opens his mouth to protest but his grandfather shakes his head, smiling at him a little sadly, “I’ve given you enough time.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The blond wants to change the subject but he realizes that his grandfather is right. He had never pushed for the details of Yuri’s heartbreak and given him the space he needed. It would not be fair to him, to keep him from the truth, not anymore.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri wheels his grandfather in front of a bench and takes a seat right in front of him. He places his hands on his knees and sighs, “It’s a really long story.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His grandfather doesn't say anything but makes himself more at ease in the chair and Yuri, try as he might, cannot refuse him. So he tells him about Japan. He tells him about the first few days and how he felt like he’d made a mistake going there, “Everything was hard. School, the language, <em>everything.</em>” Then he tells him about meeting…Yuuri. “He offered me a job and I thought it’d be a good way to immerse myself in the culture.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Then he tells him about Viktor and then about Viktor and Yuuri together, “They were your typical couple. In love with each other, they seemed to be perfect for each other, and I—I don’t know what it was about them that drew me to them. They invited me to dinner and I accepted,” He almost laughs at the memory, “They served me shellfish and when I told them I was allergic they got so flustered! You should’ve seen them!” Then the smile fades a little, “I thought they’d never invite me over again, but they did, and then they got a kitten and well, I think the kitten was what made me stay. Or at least it was part of it.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His grandfather listens attentively, not interrupting as Yuri recollects the important details of those next two years, “I had a lot of fun with them, I felt…comfortable. I thought…they liked me—as a friend—I mean <em>I </em>liked them as more but—but I was fine with just being someone they cared about.” He swallows thickly, he smiles to try to reassure his grandfather that it’s not a painful memory but it immediately falls off his face, “I really liked them.” He stops and looks around. “I really did.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He rubs the back of his neck, feeling the sting of tears in the back of his eyes and he purses his lips, angry at himself. He was supposed to be over this. He clears his throat and continues, despite feeling like his words make no sense. He tells his grandfather about the Katuski’s and the rest of the workers of the onsen, he tells him about Minami, too, and about Makkachin, Vicchan, and Potya. He tells him about Viktor and Yuuri’s house, the one he thought was cute and charming. He hasn’t talked about Japan in a long time, yet as Yuri sits here and remembers everything it seemed as though it had only happened a few weeks ago.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Then, they found out about my marks,” He says, “They were very supportive?—No, accepting. They asked me about them and I told them.” Here Yuri can’t help but let out a sardonic laugh, “It’s so stupid. So <em>stupid.</em>” He blinks rapidly, to try to stop his tears but his eyes water anyway, “I really liked them.” His voice comes out pathetic even to his own ears but he braves on, “But I—I was an inconvenience to them.” And here, when he gets to explaining about all the things that happened that fateful night, his grandfather grabs his hand and squeezes it lightly. Yuri wipes his tears with his other hand, feeling like a child. “When I heard them arguing I didn’t know what to think. All I could feel was anger. I didn’t want to listen to their explanations or excuses so I left.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He sniffs, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, “I left and begged Anya to bring us back because I didn’t want to stay there anymore.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri remains quiet, finally done with his story and his grandfather nods his head. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I see,” He says, finally, after a long while of silence, “So that’s what happened.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yeah,” Yuri says, clearing his throat and then took a deep breath to get his sniveling under control. “That’s about it.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“And what now?” His grandfather asks.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What now what?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Are you still angry?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri shakes his head, “I don’t think I am.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Do you still love them?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I don’t—I don’t know.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“So will you see them again?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri stares disbelievingly, he opens and closes his mouth, unable to find the words but then he says, “<em>No. </em>Did you listen to a word I said?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I heard,” His grandfather says, “I heard it all. Which is why I’m asking.”<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I—“ Yuri stammers. “I don’t want—“</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You said you didn’t want to listen to their excuses or their explanations because you were angry. You’re not angry anymore.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“That doesn’t mean I should see them! I’m not going back there begging for scraps of their love. I deserve more than that!”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Nikolai Plisetsky looks at his grandson for a long moment and Yuri feels like he’s being examined under a microscope. “Yura,” He says, “What was it that hurt you about all of this?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“<em>Everything,</em>” Yuri stresses because it’s obvious.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No, no, not everything. Working at the onsen didn’t hurt you, meeting all those people didn’t hurt you, meeting Yuuri and Viktor didn’t hurt you.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yes, it did!”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No, Yuri. It wasn’t meeting them that hurt, so what was it?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri looks at his grandfather helplessly, “What do you mean ‘<em>what was it?</em>’ Maybe it’s the fact that they rejected me and because of them, I’ve always felt empty and alone. Maybe it was because they didn’t think twice about me so long as they were happy.” He grits his teeth, “Maybe it was because—because even after meeting me—they <em>still </em>didn’t want me.” He stops, breathing harshly because of his words.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“So it was that.” His grandfather says casually as if Yuri wasn’t on the verge of shouting and waking up all the patients in the ward. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri remains silent, pressing his lips together, feeling like this conversation was useless. He nods, to satisfy him, “Yeah, sure, it was that.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“The concept of soulmates,” His grandfather begins as if Yuri hadn’t spoken, “Is such a strange thing. The idea that humans are specifically made for someone else is…sad.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Well, that’s what the Goddess intended,” Yuri says, reminding him of his faith.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No, it wasn’t,” His grandfather objects.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Half the world's population would disagree with you.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’d still have the support of the other half,” He smartly answers, “But that is not the point. But, since you brought up the subject of the Goddess, I suppose it’s a good argument. If you like to be romantic like that.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri stares at him like he’s lost his mind, “Isn’t that…like her whole purpose?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Who told you that? I certainly didn’t. The Goddess is a creator, a giver of birth and life, not the one who dictates who you should love.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“So why do we have soul marks then? Is that not something she gave us?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yuri,” His grandfather begins patiently, “It is human nature to want things done for us. When we are confronted without mortality and insignificance in this universe we tend to warp things to fit our understanding. Soul marks aren’t strictly for romantic purposes. They can be, but they don’t <em>have </em>to be. The marks are there to guide you, to signal to you: ‘this soul is made from the same star as yours.’ Sometimes this leads to love, other times, to friendship and more times still, it leads to nothing at all.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“But what about the heaviness and the emptiness that comes with a rejection?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Ah, well, that comes from the severed ties. It’s the emptiness that follows after the breaking of the string. It’s true that this pain can be unbearable, sometimes even fatal, but it <em>heals </em>Yuri. Tell me, do you feel it as pronounced as you did when you were eleven?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri shakes his head but says, “But it’s still there.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yes, and it always will be. Just like the emptiness of losing someone important never fades away. But you learn to function around it, it doesn’t stop you from loving again or living if you don’t want it to.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“That makes it seem like it’s not even a big deal.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh it is a big deal but it’s not the whole pie.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">At this Yuri snorts and then more seriously says, “Someone told me…that it’s possible to hate without being angry.” He bites his bottom lip, “And they told me that when my anger burned out…if I didn’t hate them…I should go back.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“So will you?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I don’t know,” Yuri says, sincerely, “I feel like I’d be giving them an easy way out.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh my dear Yurochka, accepting something happened is not the same thing as being <em>okay </em>that it happened. It is as okay to not forgive as it is to forgive. There is no right or wrong answer, just what you want. Just what makes you happy. The rest…well, it can be taken one step at a time.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">In the following weeks, Yuri thinks about this conversation often. He feels the world has changed in perspective and he doesn’t know what to do. He talks to his mother about and she with a sigh says, “He finally talked to you too, huh?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri looks at her in confusion, and she clarifies, “He gave me an earful about this,” She points to where her mark in located on her thigh, “Said I needed to stop moping and pretending I had nothing to live for.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The blond can’t help but laugh as he shakes his head, “I guess he got tired of us.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Maybe, or maybe it’s from experience.” She gives a weak smile. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They fall into a comfortable silence until Yuri remembers something. "I heard there was a visitor...while I was away."</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">"Ah," His mother says, nodding her head, "Yes, he didn't stay too long, said he had to be on his way."</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">"That's not what I heard."</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">"Well, it depends on who's telling you," </span> <span class="s1">His mother clears her throat. </span></p><p class="p1">Yuri squints his eyes at her, “Weren't you the one that said I should never strike anyone in anger?”</p><p class="p1">She looks away to the ceiling, “Yeah.”</p><p class="p1">“So why didn’t you follow your own advice?”</p><p class="p1">“I wasn’t angry,” She says, defensively, trying to seem innocent, “It was a calculated action.”</p><p class="p1">“Dedushka said he was scared the guy was going to press charges because you busted his lip.”</p><p class="p1">“Yes, well,” She mutters, “I wasn’t angry.”</p><p class="p1">He tsk’s, grinning at her obvious lies, but lets it go. He thinks he can appreciate the fact that she did it, rather than it be him.</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <strong>PRESENT DAY</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The day that Yuri is meant to leave has finally come and Yuuri feels numb. The entire time he had been here he had not made any progress in trying to speak to him. Yuri has slipped right through his fingers. Again. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Viktor had been more absentminded than usual these past few days and when Yuuri had asked about it he had just received a shrug with his answer, “I just think it’s time we got used to the fact Yura will never return to us in the way we want to.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What do you mean?” He had asked.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yura is under no obligation to forgive us,” He began, “And I don’t think he ever will. I just think it’s best if we…came to terms with that.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri had thought about that too. Seeing him was enough, knowing that he was living his life to the fullest was <em>more </em>than enough. It was fine if they were nothing but a closed chapter for the rest of Yuri’s life but it still hurt. It was still difficult not to try and beg him to come back. But it wasn’t their place and they never would have the opportunity to set things right with him, it was one of those things that were inevitable and Yuuri couldn’t help but hope for a miracle.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It was fine. Yuri had come back and now he was leaving again. And it was fine. It had to be. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But as the taxi that would take him and his friends to the airport pulled up outside the onsen Yuuri felt an overwhelming feeling of helplessness unlike ever before. It rose from the pit of his stomach and it only increased as he watched his mom, dad, and Mari come out of the kitchen to say goodbye to Yuri. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I hope you come to visit us again,” He overheard his dad saying, “I’m still waiting for the day you’ll finally beat me at shogi.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri smiled a little sadly, and the helplessness in Yuuri grew fiercer, “Sorry, I don’t know when I’ll get the chance again.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Anytime is fine dear,” His mom said, tucking a strand of blond hair behind his ear, “We’ll always be here.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When it was finally time, he and the rest of the workers bowed to them, thanking them for their patronage. They said their goodbyes and went out the front door. Out of their lives again. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He felt someone stand beside him, it was his mother, she patted him on the shoulder, and she asked, “Did you apologize?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She looked at him with an unimpressed frown, “Do you think I didn’t know? That <em>we</em> didn’t know?” She motions to Mari and his father. “Nothing happens in this house that I don’t know about. So let me ask you again, did you apologize?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri has questions. So many questions but what she’s asking makes him think. No, Yuuri had not apologized, he felt like he shouldn’t like it was something Yuri would look at in disgust. He slowly shakes his head.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And his mother shakes her head sadly, “I thought I raised you better.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He looks around and Viktor is nowhere to be found, the rest of the workers have gone back to do their duties, and the only ones that remain are his parents and Mari, looking at him like he’s not the brightest tool in the shed.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He turns, pushes open the door so hastily he probably rattled it out of the hinges and runs out. He looks around the street, and the taxi is just turning the corner, and without thinking, without really understanding what he’s doing, he shouts, “WAIT!”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He runs after the car, with all the strength he can muster, with all the desperation of someone who’s loosing a loved one to a mistake. “WAIT!” He shouts again. “YURA!” The world turns a little blurry around the edges and he realizes it’s because there are tears streaming down his face but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow, there’s still a little ways before the car turns down into the main highway and Yuri is lost forever. Right now he still has a chance though, so he runs, and screams and he shouts, and just when the helplessness inside him is about to make him give up, the car stops. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He lets out a sob of relief.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri steps out of the car looking at him like he’s lost his mind, “Katsudon what the fuck are you doing?” He shouts, coming up to him as Mila and Otabek get out of the car to witness what about to happen.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’m sorry,” Yuuri blubbers, his face crumbling, “Yuri—Yura I’m <em>so </em>sorry.” Yuri stops and blinks. “I’m sorry. I don’t—“ He bows down to ninety degrees and says again, “I’m sorry.” He drops to his knees and bows in a full <em>Saikeirei </em>position and says again, “I’m sorry.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">For a long moment, nothing happens and Yuuri expects that he’ll hear the car driving away but instead he feels a hand on his shoulder, “Get up <em>stupid.</em>” Yuri says.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri looks up slowly, and he’s expecting Yuri to look disgusted but instead, he looks relieved. He sniffs, wiping the tears from his face with the back of his hand, and he stutters, “But—but I—“</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I can’t accept your apology,” Yuri interjects, “I can’t accept yours either,” He looks somewhere behind him and Yuuri turns his head and Viktor is there, looking as though he’d run all the way here too. But when the words Yuri said fully register in Yuuri’s head, his heart seems to drop out of his chest, nonetheless, he forces himself to nod. He knew this would happen.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But then Yuri continues, “Not yet, at least.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri doesn’t dare to even breathe.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You don’t deserve my forgiveness yet but I’ve decided to let you try to earn it.” He smiles, as radiant as the sun, “Good luck.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He stands back up and steps away from him. Yuuri can’t find the strength to stand up on his own two legs so he doesn’t even bother to try. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Here,” Viktor says finally, coming to stand beside Yuuri and hands Yuri something. As Yuri takes it, Yuuri instantly knows what it is. It’s his wallet, the one he’d left in his school bag all those years ago, and a key. The key to their home—to Yuri’s home. Because it had stopped being home to them if he wasn’t there.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuri looks down at the things with a little frown on his face but eventually, he pockets the wallet and the key. He gives them one last look and says in Japanese, before he turns and walks away, “<em>Ittekimasu.</em>”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Yuuri feels as though the universe has exploded and reborn in a matter of seconds but through his tears he says, “<em>Itterashai.”</em></span>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <strong> <span class="s1">ONE YEAR LATER</span> </strong>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s snowing and the world is dark around him.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He looks at the door before him and hesitates, maybe it’s too soon, still. He looks at the key in his hand and thinks, <em>no, it’s the right time.</em></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He pushes the key into its slot and quietly turns it, warmth instantly caresses his cheeks and he pulls his luggage inside quietly. He stands at the genkan and calls out, “<em>Tadaima!”</em></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He hears a crash from somewhere inside followed by a shout and he wonders if maybe he should have called first. He doesn’t get to dwell on it because two very familiar, eager people appear in the following moment. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They stare at him like they can’t quite believe he’s there. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Finally, the older of the two says, “<em>Okaerinasai.”</em></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And he thinks, <em>Y</em><em>eah, there wasn’t any reason to call. </em></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">This is home, after all.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">
  <strong>THE END</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p class="p1"> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>as always, i hope you enjoyed it and comment your thoughts, i read them constantly. lolol. </p><p>be safe!</p><p>until next time!</p><p>(PS. If anyone wants to know what freestyle cliff jumping looks like you should check out Robert.Wall on insta and for parachuting/extreme sports: adrenaline.addiction.)</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>here's me starting another project as if i needed any more.<br/>worry not my dears, the last chapter of a phenomenon of light is on its way please don't come for me. </p>
<p>soooo about this????<br/>what do you guys think??</p></blockquote></div></div>
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